(TNS) — Georgia prosecutors in former President Donald Trump’s election interference racketeering case reportedly say they will not consider plea deals for codefendants Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani — or Trump himself.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has decided to proceed to try Trump and his two top lieutenants as the alleged ringleaders of his plot to steal the 2020 election in the Peach State and elsewhere, the Guardian reported Tuesday.
Willis has named Trump the leader of the multipronged conspiracy to overturn his loss to President Biden.
But the decision to bar a deal appears to dramatically raise the stakes for Meadows and Giuliani.
The former White House chief of staff may have hoped to wriggle off the hook in the Georgia case and has so far unsuccessfully sought to have his case moved to federal court.
He offered some cooperation to special counsel Jack Smith in exchange for testimony to the federal grand jury investigating the election interference case, but has apparently not made any formal cooperation deal.
Giuliani faces a plethora of legal woes in Georgia and elsewhere, including a slam-dunk defeat in a defamation case filed by Atlanta election workers whom he falsely accused of rigging votes for President Biden. The judgment could bankrupt him.
The ex-mayor is also named as an unindicted coconspirator in the federal election interference case led by Smith. He submitted to questioning by Smith’s team in what legal analysts called an effort to win a deal to avoid prosecution, but there is no sign that he was successful.
Aside from signaling danger to Meadows and Giuliani, the reported decision by Willis could serve as a flashing invitation to the other dozen or so remaining codefendants to step up talks for plea agreements in the sprawling case.
The most prominent name that was left off of Willis’ must-face-trial list is pro-Trump law professor John Eastman.
The right-wing law professor is considered the architect of Trump’s alleged scheme to convince Republican lawmakers in Georgia and other battleground states to create bogus slates of pro-Trump electors to muddy the waters of Biden’s victory.
That is one of several intertwined plots laid out in the RICO indictment.