A prosecutor who worked on the Watergate case against Richard Nixon 50 years ago said Sunday that a case of interference in Georgia’s election was most likely to send former President Trump to prison.
“I think that is enough. If you ask me which of the cases at the moment is who will send Donald Trump to prison, that’s right, “Nick Ackerman told MSNBC on Sunday, referring to a January 2021 conversation between Trump and Georgia’s secretary of state.
“If I have to invest my money in a lawsuit that will continue here, which will send Donald Trump to jail, it’s Georgia,” said Ackermann, a former Watergate Special Prosecutor with Watergate under Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski. “There’s no question about that.”
Georgia’s Fulton County has convened a special grand jury to investigate Trump’s efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results. The case focuses on a conversation between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger (right).
Trump, who asked Rafensperger to “find” 11,780 votes to overturn President Biden’s victory in the state, described the phone call as “perfect.”
“My phone call to the Secretary of State of Georgia with many other people, including many lawyers, knowingly online, was absolutely PERFECT and appropriate. YES, it was PERFECT NAMING, “he said in a statement emailed late Sunday.
The Fulton County investigation comes when a House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6, 2021, uprising holds ongoing hearings this month over events that led to a mob supporting Trump storming the U.S. Capitol.
So far, lawmakers have painted a dark picture of the violent attack on the Capitol and democracy, which they say is driven by the former president’s rhetoric that the 2020 election was stolen.
Last week, they began showing evidence that many members of Trump’s inner circle had repeatedly told him that there was no evidence that the election was fraught with fraud. They also showed his efforts to put pressure on then-Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the election results, which Trump knew was illegal because he had been informed by his advisers.
In Georgia this month, investigators began hearing witnesses, including Rafensperger. The special grand jury will ultimately recommend whether district prosecutors should prosecute Trump for interfering in the election.
Ackermann, whose work to investigate the illegal intrusion into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in 1972 proved links to Nixon’s re-election campaign and led to the resignation of the former president, also told MSNBC that the Nixon case happened in a very different political climate from that of Trump.
“All of Nixon’s associates were charged, they were convicted. “The only person who didn’t go to jail was Nixon because he was pardoned,” Ackermann said. “In the end, there was responsibility.”
Ackermann said the “real question” was whether Trump would be prosecuted. While Republicans initially defended Nixon, they changed their minds when recorded tapes and evidence presented a solid case.
He said that because Georgia’s prosecutors have evidence of a telephone conversation between Trump and Rafensperger on tape, they also have an extremely strong case.
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“There is a three-year crime in Georgia that Trump has committed. Prosecutors love the evidence on tape because you can’t cross-examine it, “Ackermann said.
“What’s important about these records is – when you put it in the context of all the evidence that the January 6 committee uncovered, you put it together – Donald Trump has no zero protection in Georgia,” he added.
Updated at 9:42 p.m.
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