Now that we know there’s a recording of failed one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump pressuring Michigan officials to not certify the results of the 2020 election in the Wolverine State, there could soon be new criminal charges against him and Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, according to a legal expert.
On Thursday, The Detroit News reported on the phone call.
Then-President Donald Trump personally pressured two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to recordings reviewed by The Detroit News and revealed publicly for the first time.
On a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, which also involved Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Trump told Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, the two GOP Wayne County canvassers, they’d look “terrible” if they signed the documents after they first voted in opposition and then later in the same meeting voted to approve certification of the county’s election results, according to the recordings.
“We’ve got to fight for our country,” said Trump on the recordings, made by a person who was present for the call with Palmer and Hartmann. “We can’t let these people take our country away from us.”
McDaniel, a Michigan native and the leader of the Republican Party nationally, said at another point in the call, “If you can go home tonight, do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”
That offer of attorneys in exchange for not certifying the election is bribery, Anthony Michael Kreis of the Georgia State University College of Law noted, sharing his thoughts on Twitter.
“It seems like Ronna McDaniel could be in some trouble in Michigan and Donald Trump may be facing a fifth set of charges. A promise was offered in exchange for an official act, unlike in Georgia where the preferred method appears to have been limited to browbeating state officials.”
“And that’s before any other public corruption / election fraud conspiracy type crimes that could be well implicated.”
“The real issue is whether providing a lawyer is a “valuable thing.” On the one hand, it isn’t the kind of thing that we typically would consider as being offered as a bribe. On the other hand, it is a materially valuable thing offered in exchange for a corrupt official act.
“If we think of bribery statutes as criminalizing the offering/accepting of goods that are enriching or personally benefiting the public official, then dangling an attorney falls outside that prohibition. But the terms of these statutes aren’t so limited. Be curious to see case law.”
Special Counsel Jack Smith will also be interested in the Michigan phone call and could well amend his election interference indictment to include bribery charges for both Trump and McDaniel.
The more we find out about GOP efforts to overturn the 2020 balloting, the more it seems like every damn one of them at every level of government was a willing co-conspirator.
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"If we think of bribery statutes as criminalizing the offering/accepting of goods that are enriching or personally benefiting the public official, then dangling an attorney falls outside that prohibition."
So if you pay for services for someone, saving them the cost of paying them, you're not enriching them? That makes zero sense!
If someone paid for my lawyers, doctors, contractors, landscapers, dentist etc for me, I sure as hell would come out enriched from it.