Donald Trump Has Reason to Worry About People Flipping on Him

Since the text of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' indictments against former President Donald Trump and 18 of his associates first dropped online, internet sleuths and legal analysts alike have scrambled to figure out which allies of the former president were among the 30 unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators named on the indictment.

For the internet, the pursuit was likely out of a morbid curiosity around who in Trump's inner circle—whether the more than one dozen fake electors his campaign recruited or the politicians who acted on his behalf—were likely to escape culpability in his efforts to overturn his loss in Georgia in the 2020 presidential election.

For Trump, however, the dozen-and-a-half co-conspirators named in the indictment could be cause to worry—namely, whether Willis is going to get something out of them in return for information.

"Charging co-defendants or co-conspirators in an indictment puts more pressure on them to flip on the target of your investigation, which in this case is Trump," Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and President of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Newsweek. "But Trump's best defense is delaying the cases until after the November 2024 election because if he wins and regains control of this White House, he can't be prosecuted, at least according to the DOJ."

In the Georgia case, that's likely a challenge. Unlike the federal case brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith on charges of trying to overturn the result of the 2020 election, Trump would be unable to pardon himself at the state level, like he theoretically would in a federal case.

And Willis' case is substantially different from Smith's, likely to weigh over him well after the final ballot is cast in 2024.

"Jack Smith's indictment is a surgical strike designed to push the case to trial in early 2024 before the election," Rahmani said. "Less defendants, especially less attorney defendants who will raise legal defenses like the attorney-client privilege, means the federal election case has a much greater chance of being fast-tracked.

"Willis' indictment, on the other hand, is a kitchen-sink approach, charging almost everyone, hoping that some will flip on the former president," he added. "In Willis' case, I would be surprised if we get to trial before 2025. There are way too many defendants, and her delay in bringing charges likely puts her case fourth in line."

Willis' indictment, for example, includes five of the six Trump aides who were believed to be unindicted co-conspirators in the federal indictment, including former adviser Rudy Giuliani, Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman and Sydney Powell and Jeffrey Clark—all of whom allegedly advised Trump on the legality of trying to overturn the result.

Speculation abounds, meanwhile, on the identities of those Willis left unnamed. At least 13 of the 30 unindicted co-conspirators, some speculated based on the charges, were the rest of the electors who were allegedly planning to submit votes for Trump he didn't earn.

Others were quick to note the high-profile names who weren't among the indicted, including former General Mike Flynn, Patrick Byrne, Georgia attorney Lin Wood, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and conservative activist Cleta Mitchell, who personally participated in the hour-long telephone conversation between Trump and Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he called on state officials to "find" him the 11,000 votes he needed to win.

Former FBI agent Peter Strzok echoed speculation on social media that there was a "good chance" Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser who resigned after lying to then-Vice President Mike Pence about his communication with Russian diplomats, or Byrne, the former Overstock CEO, were also likely suspects among the unindicted.