Talk:Georgia election racketeering prosecution

Draft:Harrison Floyd

I have created a draft for Harrison Floyd. Any help with expansion would be appreciated. Thriley (talk) 18:45, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I see you included a redlink to Black Voices for Trump. It might be better to write that article first, since coverage of it goes back to at least 2020, with a section about Floyd. You can then split him off to his own article if he becomes notable enough to warrant it. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 22:22, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Background section length

It's nearly 1,000 words at the moment, just over half of which is in the Accusations of electoral fraud and attempts to overturn the election section. Most of that is not specific to the Georgia lawsuit, and is amply covered in the main article it links to. A 100 word summary would more than suffice. Similarly, the Trump–Raffensperger phone call has its own article, but all the detail that's been pulled over here swamps the content in the indictment section, which should be the focus.

A good 300 words for the Background section feels right to me. I'd slash it down to size myself, but I don't want to step on any editors' toes that may have put extensive work into it, so I'll simply plant the seed and mosey on my way. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 02:37, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Xan747 Agreed, it's not specific to Georgia. The info should just be on Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election or Trump fake electors plot. We can link to those articles and transclude a couple paragraphs to help readers understand what's relevant to Georgia. We shouldn't repeat those articles here. Tuckerlieberman (talk) 19:14, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Tuckerlieberman, both of those sections have been in the first article pretty much since the very first edit by @ElijahPepe. It appears they put a lot of effort into it, and much of it I think is better than some of what's in the main attempts to overturn article. So I wouldn't want to radically pare it down without some discussion first, WP:NORUSH.

One thing I'd like to emphasize is that whatever we end up putting in the background section should be based on post-indictment sources as much as possible. That will naturally focus on the most relevant and up-to-date information. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 19:37, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Agree @Xan747.

I noticed that the first sentence in this section was similar to a sentence on "Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election", so I updated the sentence on the "Attempts" article, and I transcluded it onto this article.

At least the transclusion is set up now in case we decide to consolidate more text with "Attempts". Tuckerlieberman (talk) 20:24, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Also, a sentence about Colorado in 2016 seemed to be going too deep in the background, so I cut/pasted it to the "Attempts to overturn..." article. Tuckerlieberman (talk) 21:04, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Looks good. The final paragraph in "Accusations of electoral fraud and attempts to overturn the election" was about the fake electors plot, so I moved it down to the newly-created list of fake electors in the "Indictment" section. I will continue banging away at that section, adding Georgia-specific information now. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 22:33, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Not good. The structure of this section was intentionally written and composed to fit the chronology of Trump's claims and overview his claims of voter fraud in previous elections. The edits divide the paragraph into two sentences that are "unusually emphatic", per WP:PARAGRAPH, one of which being unsourced, and don't wholly represent the context to the context. Absolutely acceptable to attempt to trim it, but the way in which it was performed here is callous. I've gone ahead and fixed the sentence issue, which should be most of the problem. Still, before trimming it, we should establish what the actual background is to the indictment. elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 22:45, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I moved it back to where it was. The only difference is that I deleted the first sentence, Trump and his co-conspirators repeatedly sought to overturn the results of the election. because it's completely redundant, right down to the wikilink.

There was no intent on my part to be callous, but rather to introduce the list of fake electors with content describing their role and the background of how they got there.

For establishing the background to the indictment, as I suggested earlier: comb through the post-indictment sources already in the article for it. That will do a lot of the filtering for us, and will be the most up-to-date information. This is much preferable to using citations that are two or more years old. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 23:15, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Unindicted co-conspirators

I suggest changing reference 26 to Just Security's Chart: Names of the "Unindicted Co-Conspirators" in FultonCounty, Georgia Indictment because it identifies who they are by name, starting on page 2. Then those "unindicted co-conspirators" can be identified. 2603:8000:1400:8800:F5F4:C64E:7BC5:9805 (talk) 22:53, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Good find, but we should probably wait until one (preferably two) of the big media outlets to publish such a list, especially due to WP:BLP concerns. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 14:44, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

CNN has corraborated most of Just Security's identifications at https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/17/politics/trump-georgia-30-unindicted-co-conspirators/index.html. 2603:8000:1400:8800:F5F4:C64E:7BC5:9805 (talk) 22:53, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Excellent. I'll start folding them into the article now. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 23:28, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

All done, thanks for the tips! Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 01:20, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Good job @Xan747! I suggest adding a section for "fake elector slate", so they can be listed by name. Then you can link to that section when it's unclear which fake elector is being described. (Currently, you describe "Alleged fake elector, along with unknown co-conspirators 12-19, and Fisher and Consiglio", which is redundant because Fisher and Consiglio were both fake electors.)

P.S. I assume that you need another source to corroborate Just Security's identifications for co-conspirators numbered 7, 24-27 and 29-30. rootsmusic (talk) 02:39, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! I agree the fake electors should be named somewhere. I have a concern about including a name if they're not in the charging document as defendant or a known unindicted co-conspirator. (I'm correct that probably not all of them are, yes?) I didn't think I was being redundant wrt Fisher and Consiglio, but I confess that my bedtime meds have kicked in and I'm not thinking so gud.

I did not name anyone who wasn't conclusively identified in CNN's list because as you suggest, I'm wanting corroboration. That means some of the entries in the list I wrote aren't really "unknown", more like "unverified". Something for me to work on tomorrow if someone else doesn't beat me to it (hint hint). Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 03:41, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

All fake electors self-identified in a public document.

P.S. Just Security will continue to update their chart, but I believe they'll just change the link rather than overwrite the PDF that you've referenced as the source. rootsmusic (talk) 05:26, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I updated the citation so that it points to that link instead.

I'm aware the fake electors identified themselves by their public filings, but that's not the same as publicly admitting being guilty of a crime. As I'm thinking through it, the simple fact of them attempting to influence an election outcome in such a public way qualifies them as WP:PUBLICFIGUREs, alleviating my BLPCRIME concerns.

References

Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 19:15, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @Xan747! I'm not knowledgeable about Wikipedia's guidelines to be able to directly contribute in this section. You've overlooked unindicted co-conspirators 21-22 that CNN corroborated. rootsmusic (talk) 01:45, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

The essence of WP:BLPCRIME is editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured. That would cover everybody listed in the indictment, save for the fact that they're public figures. Then the concern becomes how reliably-sourced the allegations are. Otherwise, this article wouldn't exist.

In the case of our fake electors, most simply don't have the higher profiles of the named defendants and unnamed co-conspirators, so I had to think a bit about whether to name them here. It was a quick argument; what they did was an part of an overt attempt to overturn a certified election result.

Thanks for catching 21-22; they've been added. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 03:07, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has corroborated Just Security's identifications for unindicted co-conspirators numbered 24 and 30. It has also differentiated between co-conspirators 25 and 29. rootsmusic (talk) 19:50, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, taking a look now and will update accordingly. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 19:55, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

All done, would appreciate if you'd check my edits. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 21:27, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

@Xan747 You combined unindicted co-conspirators 25 with 29. Since the Atlanta Journal-Constitution identified co-conspirator 25 is Doug Logan and 29 is Jeffrey Lenberg, I think that the co-conspirators should be separately listed even if both shared involvement in the same activity. rootsmusic (talk) 01:43, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for having a look. I prefer to keep them together to avoid unnecessary duplication in the description of their involvement. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 21:42, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Title and scope

Unlike the other prosecutions of Donald Trump, there are 19 total defendants in this case, some of whom are fairly prominent. If this article is to cover all defendants, it should have a title like "Georgia election racketeering case". Otherwise, if this article will focus solely on Trump, it should probably be a subarticle of a larger case article. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 04:53, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to agree. There are a lot of notable people involved who were notable long before, and independent of this case. The case itself would be notable even if Trump were entirely omitted. Nobody's going to pretend we would somehow not write an article on a case where Rudy Giuliani was the lead defendant in an indictment for racketeering.
  I know Wikipedia gushes over anything Trump, and there are probably at least a few people who tuck their kids in with a bedtime story that just consists of reading the Mueller report over and over, but it's not exactly NPOV to act like this is about Trump and everyone else is incidental. GMG^talk 11:16, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the current title is too limited in scope wrt defendants. I additionally think it's not descriptive enough. So perhaps, "Donald Trump et al. Georgia election racketeering prosecution"? A bit lengthy but not out of bounds. We could lose "racketeering" to make it shorter. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 15:32, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I'll make the change. I'm also going to split out the long list of defendents/unindicted co-conspirators/fake electors to its own article since it's so long. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 03:52, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think "Georgia election racketeering prosecution" is an appropriate title. It can be read too generally. In fact, this is not the only racketeering case brought in relation to an election in Georgia history. This is also not an article about prosecution specifically, but about a case in general (which includes the prosecution, defense, background, etc.). D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 00:54, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Vandalism protection

There’s been vandalism. Can we get someone on this? CPena02 (talk) 00:54, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Just requested page protection. BappleBusiness^[talk] 01:00, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Trump mugshot added

The mugshot just released a few minutes ago. Given its public domain and it seems like the most relevant image to have, I added it. Chemistmenace (talk) 01:06, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

This mugshot is needed on the main Donald Trump page. Flight Risk (talk) 02:12, 25 August 2023 (UTC)