Alternate headline: Welcome to RICO 101.

The Guardian calls this an “exclusive,” and it may well be … as a reportable fact. In terms of expectations, though, we may as well learn that Georgia has a few peach trees and can get a wee bit humid. Prosecutors pushing RICO cases rarely offer an easy way out for the alleged top person in the alleged conspiracy, after all.

However, the report may be a surprise as to the number of people Fani Willis considers the top:

Fulton county prosecutors do not intend to offer plea deals to Donald Trump and at least two high-level co-defendants charged in connection with their efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, according to two people familiar with the matter, preferring instead to force them to trial.

The individuals seen as ineligible include Trump, his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Aside from those three, the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has opened plea talks or has left open the possibility of talks with the remaining co-defendants in the hope that they ultimately decide to become cooperating witnesses against the former president, the people said.

The previously unreported decision has not been communicated formally and could still change, for instance, if prosecutors shift strategy. But it signals who prosecutors consider their main targets, and how they want to wield the power of Georgia’s racketeering statute to their advantage.

Why would prosecutors offer a deal in a RICO case to the top echelons of the alleged racket? It’s happened before, but it’s pretty rare. If memory serves, the Department of Justice got one of the bosses of the DeCavalcante crime family in New Jersey to flip in a massive RICO case that crippled the Mafia. (The DeCavalcantes were the model for the crime family in the classic HBO series, The Sopranos.)

Of course, that racket existed to commit murders and run various types of criminal enterprises, rather than allegedly attempt to overturn an election. Lots of people got direct benefit in the DeCavalcante rackets, but only Trump and his top echelon would have directly benefited from the alleged conspiracy in the indictment. And arguably, the benefit would only have accrued to Trump, not even to Giuliani or Meadows, neither of whom would have been guaranteed a monetary or political benefit from the alleged racket.

That does make their addition to the “no deal” list a little more interesting. Why not offer a deal to either or both men? On paper at least, Giuliani would make a promising target for prosecutors looking to cinch a case on Trump. Not only did Giuliani help run the alleged racket, Trump has stiffed Giuliani for his fees while doing so. Giuliani is now having to plead for support to pay his own attorneys. That would not just make him ripe for flipping but perhaps motivated to stop the bleeding of his own funds in doing so.

Of course, Willis alleges that Giuiani did much of the lifting for this purported racket. That may make her less inclined to let him off the hook, but what about Meadows? His only connection to the racket is the phone call to Brad Raffensperger, in which Willis alleges that both he and Trump tried to pressure the secretary of state into falsifying election records. Meadows only faces two counts in the massive indictment: the one related to the call and the overall RICO count. The Raffensperger allegation seems pretty thin, especially as it relates to Meadows, and if Willis can’t carry that count, the RICO count won’t work on Meadows. So why not offer him a deal and get that locked away?

There are three obvious answers to those questions. First: Willis is confident in her case, bolstered by testimony that will result in the plea deals already handed out or under negotiation now, as The Guardian reports. Generally speaking, flips by more junior members of an alleged conspiracy make it easier to get convictions of the senior members, but that depends on the structure of the conspiracy. That’s the pattern in Mafia cases and other similar models, but that’s because the Mafia was very hierarchical and, well, organized. Willis’ RICO theory is anything but. None of the people who have flipped will have anything on Meadows, for instance, because none of them other than Trump took part in the action that produced the single count against Meadows.

Second: The politics of cutting a deal with Meadows and Giuliani prevent her from offering the same terms she gave to Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis. I’d lean more toward this explanation, especially regarding Meadows for the reasons above, but Powell’s plea deal is a fly in that ointment. Powell went much farther in public advancing the false arguments (by her admission) in the Georgia “Kraken on steroids” case, so much so that even Giuliani seemed embarrassed by it at one point. Her plea deal is much more politically problematic than one for Meadows would be, and arguably more so than one for Giuliani — and Giuliani could probably deliver more on Trump if he was motivated to do so, too.

Third: Willis needs more than one scalp out of this massive probe and costly prosecution. Politically speaking, Trump would be enough, but it wouldn’t stick as well as a RICO case with the general public unless at least a couple of more defendants got convicted as well. There could be elements of all three in Willis’ reasoning, but I’d bet this is what is driving the no-deal stance for Giuliani and Meadows, especially after flipping Powell. Willis needs to establish a racket not just in court but also in public opinion, and likely for the rounds of appeals that will result if and when she gets convictions in this case.

Now let’s see if Willis sticks to that decision … or whether it’s a negotiating tactic.

The latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up!

• The 2024 election cycle may be deja vu in more ways than one. Andrew Malcolm talks about the nagging familiarity he’s feeling already, and we discuss whether either party will be able to change directions.
• We also discuss the media coverage of the Gaza war, and more!

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!