According to a prosecutor who worked on the Watergate case against Richard Nixon 50 years ago, the Georgia election interference case is the most likely to send former President Donald Trump to prison.
“I think that’s enough. If you’re asking me which of the cases right now, which one is going to send Donald Trump to prison, that’s the case,” Nick Akerman told MSNBC during a recent interview, referring to a January 2021 call between Trump and Georgia’s secretary of state.
“If I had to put my money on one prosecution that’s going to go forward here that would send Donald Trump to jail, it’s Georgia,” Akerman, a former prosecutor with the Watergate Special Prosecution Force told MSNBC during a recent interview. “No question about it.”
Fulton County in Georgia has convened a special grand jury to investigate Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. The case centers on the call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R).
In the call, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes to overturn President Biden’s victory in the state, has described the phone call as “perfect.”
According to Ackerman, Trump’s only potential defense would be to “somehow pick up on some ambiguity in the tape, that he did not really mean what he said,” though he doesn’t think that will stand up in court.
“Put in the context about the January 6th committee has found, I think they have gotten a case beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.
Akerman, whose work probing an illegal break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in 1972 substantiated ties to Nixon’s reelection campaign and led to the former president’s resignation, also said on MSNBC the Nixon case occurred in a vastly different political climate than Trump’s.
“All of Nixon’s aides were indicted, they were convicted. The only person who didn’t go to prison was Nixon, because he was pardoned,” Akerman said. “There was accountability in the end.”
He said the “real question” is whether Trump would be held accountable criminally. While Republicans initially defended Nixon, they had a change of heart when recorded tapes and evidence presented a solid case.
Ackerman said that because Georgia prosecutors have tape-recorded evidence of the phone call between Trump and Raffensperger, they also have an extremely strong case.
Should Trump go to prison, it would be a dramatic change for a man who spends hours every on his personal appearance, including applying his signature orange makeup and using hairspray to keep his complex hairstyle in place.
Watch Ackerman’s interview below:
