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Thank you, I sure make no claim to astuteness ;-) Or legal knowledge, for that matter. The whole concept of RICO is something I know about one sentence worth about, but you could be exposing an added dimension to all this.

Of course a RICO case still has to meet the same basic test: is there sufficient evidence to prove a crime was committed? If my limited understanding of RICO is correct, then the task of developing such a case would be even more difficult and time-consuming, since the prosecutor would have to fully investigate each individuals actions, and then investigate the intersection of all these individual acts to see if they constitute a criminal conspiracy.

This sentence from wikipedia might be useful: “The RICO Act focuses specifically on racketeering and allows the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes they ordered others to do or assisted them in doing”.

What is a “racket” I kept wondering? Wikipedia:

“A racket, according to the current common and most general definition, is an organized criminal act or activity in which the criminal act or activity is some form of substantial business, or a way to earn illegal money either regularly, or briefly but repeatedly. A racket is therefore generally a repeated or continuous organized criminal operation or enterprise...However, the term “racket” has expanded in definition over time and may now be used less strictly to refer to any continuous or repeated illegal organized crime operation, including those that do not necessarily involve fraudulent practices or extortion.”

What is interesting (again according to that great source of legal information, wikipedia) is that in the list of “racketeering”, alongside dog-fighting, price-fixing, and people-smuggling is “political corruption”.

Looking over the list of RICO cases, it seems to me that a RICO case for political conspiracy would be a first. Not to say that it won’t or couldn’t happen, but it would probably cause prosecutors to move very slowly in such uncharted waters.

The main point of my post was that we can at least (IMHO) remove “lack of will” by the Attorney General as a factor. In contrast to Eric the Red, for example, if the legal foundation is there I’m certain that William Barr will not overlook any potential prosecution. Which, considering how awful some of our previous AGs have been, is a big deal.

Check this out:

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What Do the Courts Consider in a Conspiracy Case?

By FindLaw Staff | Reviewed by Maddy Teka, Esq. | Last updated June 02, 2020

A criminal conspiracy exists when two or more people agree to commit almost any unlawful act, then take some action toward its completion. The action taken need not itself be a crime, but it must indicate that those involved in the conspiracy knew of the plan and intended to break the law. A person may be convicted of conspiracy even if the actual crime was never committed.

For example, Jason, Alice, and Hank plan a bank robbery. They 1) visit the bank first to assess its security, and 2) pool their money and buy a gun. All three can be charged with conspiracy to commit robbery, regardless of whether the robbery itself is ever attempted or completed.

The “Agreement” Requirement

You might be wondering how exactly an agreement between two co-conspirators is formed. There’s no need for formalities. For instance, in the above example, Hank isn’t required to tell Jason and Alice in unequivocal terms, “I agree to commit a crime with you” (although that statement would surely be a prosecutor’s dream). Instead, an agreement may be implied from the circumstances, such as where Hank and his two companions hold a meeting to plan the crime.

The Element of “Intent”

As with other specific intent crimes, a person’s intention is key. But the court will also care about the mental states of the alleged partners in crime. Other individuals in the conspiracy must intend to agree, and all must intend to achieve the outcome.

Merely associating with people known to be involved in crime doesn’t make you a co-conspirator. For instance, just because your friend tells you he is going to burglarize a house doesn’t mean you are part of the conspiracy. Not unless you also agree to participate by acting as a getaway driver or helping him scope out the property ahead of time.

In most jurisdictions, at least one co-conspirator must take some concrete step in furtherance of the plan. In the bank robbery example, this could be rental of a car to use in the crime. The requirement of an overt act prevents people from being thrown in jail for merely talking about a crime. If three drunken friends at a bar speculate about how they would rob a bank together, and none of them ever undertakes any sort of actual action, there’s no criminal conspiracy. The intent requirement likely wouldn’t be satisfied in that scenario, either.

Penalties

Under the federal conspiracy statute, the offense is punishable by up to five years imprisonment, plus fines. A significantly lower penalty applies if the object of the conspiracy was merely a misdemeanor (e.g., you conspire to commit vandalism); in that case, the sentence for conspiracy can’t exceed the maximum penalty for the misdemeanor. Under state law, the punishments for conspiracy vary.

Prosecutors commonly charge conspiracy whenever two or more offenders act in tandem. A person can be convicted both of an underlying crime and of conspiracy to commit it, and receive separate punishments for each offense.
Charged With Criminal Conspiracy? You’ll Want a Good Attorney.

Racketeering is a defined term in the RICO act. It is the conduct of an Enterprise (another defined term) through a pattern of “racketeering activity”. A “pattern” requires more than one act. Racketeering activity is a list of around 20 different crimes, including murder, arson, extortion, assault, bribery, and many others. The easiest one to use is mail or wire fraud. Any use of the mails or telephone system (or now, the internet) in furtherance of the commission of a crime is a separate crime.

Use of RICO to prosecute those leading a political party through the use of mail and wire fraud (fraudulent ballots, illegal donations for example) would be easy. You have to prove that the individual committed an act in furtherance of the enterprise, not that they knew about and approved all the bad things the enterprise did, just that they did something in furtherance of the enterprise.

I would probably define the RICO enterprise not as the Democrat enterprise per se, but as a cabal within the Democrat party that is running it to get wealthy, gain offices illegally, harm their enemies, etc. It’s like when the mob ran a union, the union and its members weren’t responsible, but the mobsters using the union were.