After her nonsensical assertion that “RICO is not a crime,” rather than crack open criminal law for dummies, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has reiterated her claim.
“RICO is a statute under which specific crimes may be considered – kidnapping, robbery, arson, etc.,” the New York Democrat posted on X. “You need to name the crimes in order to substantiate RICO.”
It is indeed true that the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act is a statute, as are its corresponding state laws. But violating any of these RICO statutes, or committing RICO crimes, are, in fact, crimes. The underlying acts in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy in question do not have to be crimes like robbery or arson, or even acts of violence. But there does have to be someone who committed a crime somewhere along the way.
And if RICO was not a crime, then Donald Trump and 18 other co-defendants would not be facing the blockbuster criminal indictment that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wishes to weaponize to stop the former president from returning to the White House.
Trump and other co-defendants still face Georgia charges for underlying process crimes, such as making false statements and filing false documents. But the blanket charge implicating all 19 defendants is the RICO crime, in which lesser offenses allegedly furthered the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. These include offenses that, crucially, otherwise are not considered crimes on their own, but RICO crimes by design allow prosecutors to implicate as broad a ring of co-conspirators in the hopes of turning the accused against the head of the conspiracy. For example, 12 of the 161 acts cited in the Georgia indictment are just Trump spouting off on Twitter. While the First Amendment largely protects that speech in a vacuum, RICO allows Willis to use said posts as evidence that Trump was furthering his alleged conspiracy.
Now, is RICO a good law? Civil libertarians have long objected to the expansion of RICO in practice, arguing that a statute initially instituted to crack down on economic crimes has been perverted to effectively criminalize speech and infringe on due process. Ironically enough, RICO, which was federally enacted during the Nixon administration, was famously furthered in scope and reach by Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is now indicted alongside Trump in Georgia.
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In order to be charged with RICO crime in Georgia, the “pattern of racketeering” only requires just two acts in furtherance of a conspiracy within a four-year period. And under the law, Trump does not need to have encouraged or even known about the lower-level crimes or acts as long as Willis can consider him the head of the enterprise. For good reason, prosecutors have loved RICO while defense attorneys have loathed it in equal measure.
Should RICO be a crime? Or should the federal and state statutes be reformed or limited to harken back to their original intentions? As evidenced by the prosecutorial overreach of the contemptible Willis and her office, there is good reason to consider doing so. But that involves conceding the reality that under current law, RICO is indeed a crime.