Gyrfalcon: skinink: TFG is winning. He should have been arrested and charged with something by now. Screw the "These things take time!!!!" explanations. A sitting President schemed a plan to overturn an election should he lose it, and almost succeeded. People in his former Administration need to be charged and arrested as well. Doing the same to Congressmen involved would be tough, but they should not feel they have some type of immunity.

I'm not sure why it's hard for you to understand things, princess. Here's yet another explanation.

"Scheming a plan" isn't a crime, and it isn't evidence. A crime has to be one that is enumerated in a state's penal code, or in the US code, and the action has to fulfill all the elements of that crime to be charged as such. "Not only does [Willis] need to show that former President Trump made this call and made those statements, she needs evidence of what was his intent," said Page Pate, a trial lawyer in Georgia. "I think, especially if she really wants to move forward with a prosecution, she wants more than just his voice on a phone call." https://www.npr.org/2022/01/20/1074417449/district-attorney-in-georgia-asks-for-a-special-grand-jury-for-trump-election-pr

So if the crime is, let's say, 21-2-567 - Intimidation of electors, which is probably what's going on here, then let's take a look at the definition and elements:

(a) Any person who uses or threatens to use force and violence, or acts in any other manner to intimidate any other person, to:
(1) Vote or refrain from voting at any primary or election, or to vote or refrain from voting for or against any particular candidate or question submitted to electors at such primary or election; or
(2) Place or refrain from placing his or her name upon a register of electors
shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than one nor more than ten years or to pay a fine not to exceed $100,000.00, or both.
(b) As used in this Code section, the term "acts in any other manner to intimidate" means to undertake or pursue a knowing and willful course of conduct which causes emotional distress by placing another person in reasonable fear for such person's safety or for the safety of another person and which serves no legitimate purpose.

So we need evidence, either testimonial or circumstantial, that shows Trump knowingly and willingly undertook acts intended to put another person in reasonable fear for their safety.
What did he do? He made a phone call. To whom? In the presence of who else? Under what circumstances?
Did the recipient REASONABLY BELIEVE he was being threatened, and why?
Was that the INTENT OF THE CALL? What led the recipient to believe that that was the intention, and not just Trump throwing a patented Trumpertantrum?

Is there other corroborating evidence that links the recipient and Trump in such a way that both ends of those links are connected? i.e. an email from Trump to his pet lawyer to the recipient's lawyer to the recipient promising he'd never work in this town again? Did the recipient get that email, and what was his response?

Just because Trump "schemed a plan" doesn't mean it's criminally actionable. The DA has to be able to prove each of those steps, and show that Trump meant every single thing he did to be in furtherance of that scheming plan, and if she can't, then she hasn't got a criminal case.

The grand jury had to be convened because they can issue subpoenas, and Raffensperger has said he will not cooperate without a subpoena, probably for reasons related to the nature of his job. But those little details matter when all you have is a scheming plan and not much else.

IRestoreFurniture: Gyrfalcon: skinink: TFG is winning. He should have been arrested and charged with something by now. Screw the "These things take time!!!!" explanations. A sitting President schemed a plan to overturn an election should he lose it, and almost succeeded. People in his former Administration need to be charged and arrested as well. Doing the same to Congressmen involved would be tough, but they should not feel they have some type of immunity.

I'm not sure why it's hard for you to understand things, princess. Here's yet another explanation.

"Scheming a plan" isn't a crime, and it isn't evidence. A crime has to be one that is enumerated in a state's penal code, or in the US code, and the action has to fulfill all the elements of that crime to be charged as such. "Not only does [Willis] need to show that former President Trump made this call and made those statements, she needs evidence of what was his intent," said Page Pate, a trial lawyer in Georgia. "I think, especially if she really wants to move forward with a prosecution, she wants more than just his voice on a phone call." https://www.npr.org/2022/01/20/1074417449/district-attorney-in-georgia-asks-for-a-special-grand-jury-for-trump-election-pr

So if the crime is, let's say, 21-2-567 - Intimidation of electors, which is probably what's going on here, then let's take a look at the definition and elements:

(a) Any person who uses or threatens to use force and violence, or acts in any other manner to intimidate any other person, to:
(1) Vote or refrain from voting at any primary or election, or to vote or refrain from voting for or against any particular candidate or question submitted to electors at such primary or election; or
(2) Place or refrain from placing his or her name upon a register of electors
shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than one nor more than ten years or to pay a fine not to exceed $100,000.00, or both.
(b) As used in this Code section, the term "acts in any other manner to intimidate" means to undertake or pursue a knowing and willful course of conduct which causes emotional distress by placing another person in reasonable fear for such person's safety or for the safety of another person and which serves no legitimate purpose.

So we need evidence, either testimonial or circumstantial, that shows Trump knowingly and willingly undertook acts intended to put another person in reasonable fear for their safety.
What did he do? He made a phone call. To whom? In the presence of who else? Under what circumstances?
Did the recipient REASONABLY BELIEVE he was being threatened, and why?
Was that the INTENT OF THE CALL? What led the recipient to believe that that was the intention, and not just Trump throwing a patented Trumpertantrum?

Is there other corroborating evidence that links the recipient and Trump in such a way that both ends of those links are connected? i.e. an email from Trump to his pet lawyer to the recipient's lawyer to the recipient promising he'd never work in this town again? Did the recipient get that email, and what was his response?

Just because Trump "schemed a plan" doesn't mean it's criminally actionable. The DA has to be able to prove each of those steps, and show that Trump meant every single thing he did to be in furtherance of that scheming plan, and if she can't, then she hasn't got a criminal case.

The grand jury had to be convened because they can issue subpoenas, and Raffensperger has said he will not cooperate without a subpoena, probably for reasons related to the nature of his job. But those little details matter when all you have is a scheming plan and not much else.

"Scheming a plan" isn't a crime, and it isn't evidence

All those people in jail for conspiracy charges surely wish they had you for a lawyer.

OhioUGrad: Gyrfalcon: skinink: TFG is winning. He should have been arrested and charged with something by now. Screw the "These things take time!!!!" explanations. A sitting President schemed a plan to overturn an election should he lose it, and almost succeeded. People in his former Administration need to be charged and arrested as well. Doing the same to Congressmen involved would be tough, but they should not feel they have some type of immunity.

I'm not sure why it's hard for you to understand things, princess. Here's yet another explanation.

"Scheming a plan" isn't a crime, and it isn't evidence. A crime has to be one that is enumerated in a state's penal code, or in the US code, and the action has to fulfill all the elements of that crime to be charged as such. "Not only does [Willis] need to show that former President Trump made this call and made those statements, she needs evidence of what was his intent," said Page Pate, a trial lawyer in Georgia. "I think, especially if she really wants to move forward with a prosecution, she wants more than just his voice on a phone call." https://www.npr.org/2022/01/20/1074417449/district-attorney-in-georgia-asks-for-a-special-grand-jury-for-trump-election-pr

So if the crime is, let's say, 21-2-567 - Intimidation of electors, which is probably what's going on here, then let's take a look at the definition and elements:

(a) Any person who uses or threatens to use force and violence, or acts in any other manner to intimidate any other person, to:
(1) Vote or refrain from voting at any primary or election, or to vote or refrain from voting for or against any particular candidate or question submitted to electors at such primary or election; or
(2) Place or refrain from placing his or her name upon a register of electors
shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than one nor more than ten years or to pay a fine not to exceed $100,000.00, or both.
(b) As used in this Code section ...

Relax, this is just one of the Eyores posting words instead of the Keenan gif.

Gyrfalcon: Conspiracy is "two or more people agreeing to commit an illegal act, or a legal act in an illegal manner, plus one overt act in furtherance of the crime."

Both people have to agree to commit the illegal act. Therefore, if one person does not agree, the conspiracy did not take place.

So if Trump called Raffensperger and said "Find me 11,000 votes" and Raffensperger said "No" then there IS NO CRIME if that's all that happened. If Trump called him and said "Find me 11,000 votes or I'll send someone to 'help' you," and Raffensperger wasn't intimidated and said "No" then there was no conspiracy.

What has to happen here to make the "schemed plan" an actual crime is that Trump had to have said to some third party that we haven't met yet, in Raffensperger's presence "Find me 11,000 votes or [unnamed co-conspirator #1] is going to come down and help you," and this third party said "Yes I am" and Raffensperger believed that this third person was going to do that. NOW we have an actionable conspiracy.

Since Raffensperger has indicated he will not cooperate without a subpoena, but has likewise indicated he will cooperate with a subpoena, I suspect that in fact there was such a third party present and there was a conspiracy as described. However if not, if it was just Trump on the phone with someone who didn't cooperate, then it was not a conspiracy. At best it was solicitation.

You can scheme all day long to commit all kinds of crimes if you want to. Hell, if "scheming" was a crime, Stephen King would have been in the electric chair in a dozen states. Lawyers don't throw around terms like mens rea and actus reus for nothing.