Was Racketeering Trump's Real Crime in Georgia?

IN 1969, LAWRENCE Speiser, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington, D.C., office, appeared before Congress to testify against a proposed law that would greatly expand the powers of federal law enforcement. “Our constitutional system of government wisely limits the range of methods available to us, reflecting our historical commitment to liberty and justice rather than to efficiency and expediency,” Speiser said. “To the extent that this puts us at a disadvantage in dealing with the criminal organization, it is a price we must pay, for ultimately it is this which distinguishes the lawful from the lawless society.”

- Joe Lancaster

Despite Speiser’s warnings, Congress passed and President Richard Nixon signed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Intended to crack down on the mafia, the law enabled prosecutors to build conspiracy cases by using certain state and federal crimes as “predicate acts” to establish an “enterprise.” Within a few years, through increasingly aggressive prosecutions, the law’s scope expanded to encompass a much wider range of conduct than originally intended. As L. Gordon Crovitz noted in a 1990 Reason article, “Ambitious federal prosecutors have now discovered RICO’s many uses, and this poses a great danger to civil liberty and free enterprise.”

Since the federal law was established, more than 30 states have adopted RICO statutes of their own. Georgia’s version, passed in 1980, is substantially broader than the federal law. In August, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat and self-proclaimed “fan of RICO,” used Georgia’s law to charge former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants with racketeering, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. But contemptible as the alleged actions of Trump and his cohorts may be, Willis is wielding the RICO statute in a way that is far afield from the law’s original intent, and the case threatens to impinge on activity protected by the First Amendment.