Is President Trump a Racketeer?
In the last several months there has been occasional, yet intense, speculation in the media over whether Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller might charge President Trump with violations of a federal statute called the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. Congress passed RICO in 1970 as part of a larger law called the Organized Crime Control Act (OCCA). The entire package of legislation was the culmination of a series of investigations in both Congress and the Executive Branch that dated back to the early 1950s. Those investigations revealed the inner workings of a nation-wide criminal syndicate called the Mafia or Cosa Nostra. RICO and the OCCA, in short, was fashioned to provide the Federal Government with the tools necessary to stop the Mob.
RICO turned out to be the key element in the Federal Government's effort to wipe out the mob from the 1980s to the opening years of the twenty first century. Federal prosecutors, including Robert Mueller, would not have been able to end Mafia activities without RICO. Yet RICO has also gained a certain notoriety for being applied to groups and individuals with no connection whatsoever to the Mob. In the 1990s and the the early 2000s, for example, the Supreme Court decided no less than three cases on the application of RICO to abortion protestors. These three cases wound up ruling that RICO did not so apply, but only after at least two decades of the lower federal courts typically holding that it did. And using RICO against abortion protestors was just one example of its expansive use. There are also cases that include it being used successfully against the Church of Scientology, the Hell's Angels, Croatian nationalists operating in New York City and, perhaps most remarkably of all, in divorce cases.
The key to these expansive applications of RICO well beyond the intent of the Congress that enacted it lies in the fact that Congress could not simply outlaw being a member of the Mafia. Had Congress done so, it would have raised First Amendment issues similar to if they had, for example, outlawed membership in the Communist Party. Congress thus had to construct RICO in terms of the activities that the Mafia participated in - so-called "predicate racketeering acts" - such as money laundering, drug running, and taking over labor unions through extortion and violence. All of this was understandable, and it definitely incorporated the well-covered activities of the Mob throughout the second half of the twentieth century. The problem is that it also covered all sorts of actions carried out by individuals who were not mob members but who committed various criminal, nefarious activities. These groups could be prosecuted as racketeers under RICO, even if they didn't fit the traditional notions of being the Mob, or even Mob-infiltrated institutions. Abortion protestors, for example, were brought to court under RICO for all committing arsons and other crimes in the course of their attempts to shut down women's health care clinics. Before the Supreme Court ended the use of RICO against the abortion protestors in 2006, they had suffered all sorts of criminal and civil sanctions under the terms of the law.
The upshot of all this is that President Trump and his family and close associates may indeed find themselves vulnerable to racketeering charges. This will be the case even though Trump and his friends - as far as we know - have never had anything to do with the Mob. If Mueller finds that President Trump, for example, laundered money through dummy business several different times, he may well find himself facing RICO charges. He might even if, unbeknownst to him, someone very close to him in the Trump organization committed, to cite just one example, mail or wire fraud. And if a jury finds him guilty of racketeering he stands to spend the rest of his time in jail, and/or to have the Trump organization stripped of all of its assets and money.
All of this of course is speculation. We are all waiting with baited breath to see what conclusions Mueller comes up with his investigations. It would certainly be shocking news to everyone if he does indeed recommend charges against President Trump or his cronies based on violations of RICO. It is certainly in the realm of possibility, however, that it could happen. If it does, it will prove highly ironic - almost fitting of an ancient Greek tragedy, in fact - that Donald Trump's greatest personal triumph - his crowning achievement - of achieving the White House, will have been the beginning of the end of his personal wealth and power.
RICO turned out to be the key element in the Federal Government's effort to wipe out the mob from the 1980s to the opening years of the twenty first century. Federal prosecutors, including Robert Mueller, would not have been able to end Mafia activities without RICO. Yet RICO has also gained a certain notoriety for being applied to groups and individuals with no connection whatsoever to the Mob. In the 1990s and the the early 2000s, for example, the Supreme Court decided no less than three cases on the application of RICO to abortion protestors. These three cases wound up ruling that RICO did not so apply, but only after at least two decades of the lower federal courts typically holding that it did. And using RICO against abortion protestors was just one example of its expansive use. There are also cases that include it being used successfully against the Church of Scientology, the Hell's Angels, Croatian nationalists operating in New York City and, perhaps most remarkably of all, in divorce cases.
The key to these expansive applications of RICO well beyond the intent of the Congress that enacted it lies in the fact that Congress could not simply outlaw being a member of the Mafia. Had Congress done so, it would have raised First Amendment issues similar to if they had, for example, outlawed membership in the Communist Party. Congress thus had to construct RICO in terms of the activities that the Mafia participated in - so-called "predicate racketeering acts" - such as money laundering, drug running, and taking over labor unions through extortion and violence. All of this was understandable, and it definitely incorporated the well-covered activities of the Mob throughout the second half of the twentieth century. The problem is that it also covered all sorts of actions carried out by individuals who were not mob members but who committed various criminal, nefarious activities. These groups could be prosecuted as racketeers under RICO, even if they didn't fit the traditional notions of being the Mob, or even Mob-infiltrated institutions. Abortion protestors, for example, were brought to court under RICO for all committing arsons and other crimes in the course of their attempts to shut down women's health care clinics. Before the Supreme Court ended the use of RICO against the abortion protestors in 2006, they had suffered all sorts of criminal and civil sanctions under the terms of the law.
The upshot of all this is that President Trump and his family and close associates may indeed find themselves vulnerable to racketeering charges. This will be the case even though Trump and his friends - as far as we know - have never had anything to do with the Mob. If Mueller finds that President Trump, for example, laundered money through dummy business several different times, he may well find himself facing RICO charges. He might even if, unbeknownst to him, someone very close to him in the Trump organization committed, to cite just one example, mail or wire fraud. And if a jury finds him guilty of racketeering he stands to spend the rest of his time in jail, and/or to have the Trump organization stripped of all of its assets and money.
All of this of course is speculation. We are all waiting with baited breath to see what conclusions Mueller comes up with his investigations. It would certainly be shocking news to everyone if he does indeed recommend charges against President Trump or his cronies based on violations of RICO. It is certainly in the realm of possibility, however, that it could happen. If it does, it will prove highly ironic - almost fitting of an ancient Greek tragedy, in fact - that Donald Trump's greatest personal triumph - his crowning achievement - of achieving the White House, will have been the beginning of the end of his personal wealth and power.
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