Fani Willis’ immunity deals with eight lower level Trump targets loom large
The biggest names in Fani Willis’ racketeering indictment are hardened career criminals like Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani who knew exactly what they were doing, and are big enough public figures that they can get their supporters to help fund their legal defense costs. But right wing voices are now pushing the narrative that the lower level defendants in this case are victims, because this wasn’t really their crime spree, and now they’re going to have a difficult time funding their criminal defense costs.
Don’t buy it, and for one simple reason. Earlier this year Fani Willis gave immunity to eight lower level criminal targets in her probe, in exchange for their testimony against the higher level targets. This suggests that Willis would have given immunity to every lower level target if they’d wanted it. So when it comes to the lower level people who ended up indicted, they made a choice to get indicted. They could have given up Trump and the gang, and they decided not to.
For that matter, the “nobodies” who got indicted this week can still cut deals right now if they want to. Some of them probably will. Whether they can still get immunity is another question. In general, the longer you wait to cut a deal, the less valuable you become to prosecutors, and so the less leniency you get. But there are always still leniency deals to be had, of some kind, for anyone who’s not the biggest fish.
Even mid-level defendants like Jenna Ellis or Mark Meadows could probably have gotten immunity just by cooperating. And maybe they still can. As a general rule, the higher up the chain you are, the worse your crimes might be – but the more valuable the information you have on the biggest fish might be.
So it’s really easy to push back against this argument that there should be any sympathy for anyone who’s been indicted in the Fulton County probe. Not only did they choose to take the allegedly criminal actions that got them indicted, they then chose to get indicted instead of taking immunity deals. And they can still choose to take deals if they want.
