What does former President Donald J. Trump and Grammy-winning rapper Young Thug have in common? Both are high-profile individuals facing racketeering charges in Georgia’s Fulton County. Before the former president and 18 others were charged for allegedly attempting to overthrow the 2020 election, Young Thug a.k.a. Jeffry Williams was accused of being a gang shot-caller in a 65-count YSL case.
To learn more about what the cases have in common and how the YSL-case might offer a preview of the former president’s, Rolling Stone magazine reached out to Knowles Gallant Timmons Partner Chris Timmons. An Atlanta trial lawyer who previously served as a DeKalb and Cobb County prosecutor, Timmons shared perspective on the potential timeline in the president’s case. He said the Trump case could take even longer than the year-plus it’s taken for the YSL case to get underway due to the Trump’s ongoing presidential aspirations and the number of lawyer defendants involved.
Timmons explained that for a lawyer, pleading out can essentially mean disbarring themselves, which makes going to trial a risk work taking. “You’ve got people who are wrapped up in their professional identity in the Trump indictment. If somebody took my law degree away from me, that would not be quite the same as killing me, but close. You have more of those types of defendants than you do in the YSL case.” Additionally, Timmons offered insight into the Herculean effort of the Fulton County district attorney’s office to handle two man-power intensive cases like these. While the two cases may delay other gang and corruption cases in their respective dockets, he says that each will be handled by different units within the DA’s office and will have no labor overlap. “They are unlikely to directly affect each other,” concluded Timmons.
To read the full interview with Rolling Stone, please visit the online magazine here.