The Fulton County, Georgia, judge overseeing the racketeering cases against former President Donald Trump and more than a dozen other co-defendants stemming from the aftermath of the 2020 election has ruled against District Attorney Fani Willis’ request to revoke the bond for one co-defendant.
As reported by the Georgia Recorder, the former director of Black Voices for Trump, Harrison William Floyd, managed to avoid jail time when Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee “approved a temporary bond order that allows him to publicly comment on the 2020 presidential election racketeering case as long as he does not refer to witnesses or his remaining fourteen co-defendants.”The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office revised the bond order for Floyd after a two-hour court hearing. During the hearing, prosecutors contended that Floyd’s social media posts violated his bond agreement, which prohibited him from communicating about co-defendants and potential witnesses in the high-profile case.
But instead of sending Floyd back to jail, McAfee “ordered prosecutors and his attorneys to reach a consensus on the new terms of his bond order that will remain in place for the time being,” the outlet’s report said.
According to McAfee, Floyd technically breached a bond agreement that barred him from communicating about witnesses and co-defendants. However, McAfee expressed the opinion that Floyd’s social media comments didn’t justify sending him back to jail.Instead, McAfee called for more clarity regarding what Floyd is allowed to communicate about the case on social media and in other public forums, the Recorder added.
The outlet noted further:Floyd spent several days in Atlanta’s Rice Street jail in August after a grand jury indicted him on charges alleging that he, Donald Trump and 17 of their co-defendants illegally conspired to try to reverse Trump’s 2020 election loss to the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in Georgia and several other states.
According to the new court order, Floyd may discuss the case on social media as long as he does not comment about specific witnesses or co-defendants. He is also prohibited from publicly communicating about any witness, co-defendants, or unindicted alleged co-conspirator except in response to something they have said about him.
Though Willis has managed to secure a couple of plea deals in her cases against 19 defendants charged with various legal violations following the 2020 election, a noted legal expert claims that the latest plea by Jenna Ellis proves that the DA has “wildly overcharged” in the cases.Ellis, an attorney who represented then-President Trump over claims that he lost to then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden due to election/vote fraud, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor earlier this week and was sentenced to five years probation, 100 hours of community service, and a $5,000 fine. Additionally, she must write a letter of apology to Georgia residents.
But, according to former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, writing in National Review this week, “Willis has hyped her prosecution of Donald Trump, Ellis, and 17 others affiliated with the Trump campaign as a racketeering-conspiracy case, depicting the former president as the head of an organized-crime enterprise.
He added: I have contended that Willis does not have a RICO case under Georgia’s analogue to the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1971.”McCarthy went on to say that the group of people Willis indicted did not behave as an “identifiable criminal ‘enterprise’ as defined in RICO.” He also wrote that he believes Willis “lacks a single criminal objective as to which she can say all 19 defendants agreed,” a conspiratorial element required to prove a RICO case.
“It is not a crime to seek to reverse an election result — indeed, Georgia law provides for legal challenges to election outcomes,” McCarthy continued
