As we wait for the political show trials of Donald Trump to begin, it’s good to remember a hard and fast rule: Quotes and summaries of events reported by the corporate media are always either half wrong or deliberately misleading.
A perfect example of that truism was provided this week by Axios’ Mike Allen, who claimed Monday that Georgia Democrat prosecutor Fani Willis included an “Easter egg” in her I’m-a-very-serious-lawyer indictment. Allen said that a specific portion of the documents had “a twist” that “could spoil” Trump’s legal team’s effort to have the entire case moved to federal court, a move that could possibly secure him a more favorable jury (as opposed to the pool of “marginalized, underserved and disadvantaged” voters he would surely get in Fulton County).
That “twist” is an open letter Trump sent to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in September 2021, which was after the former president was out of office, thus supposedly undercutting the Trump team’s assertion that the criminal charges are purely federal in nature, rather than addressable at the county court level. In that letter, the indictment notes, Trump solicited Raffensperger to “unlawfully” undo the 2020 election outcome “and announce the true winner.”
Here’s that portion of the indictment in full:
On or about the 17th day of September 2021, DONALD JOHN TRUMP committed the felony offense of SOLICITATION OF VIOLATION OF OATH BY PUBLIC OFFICER, in violation of O.C.G.A. §§ 16-4-7 and 16-10-1, in Fulton County, Georgia, by unlawfully soliciting,
