This is an opinion column.

91. That’s the number of criminal and civil charges now levied against the man Republicans seem hell-bent on returning to the White House and his gang of dis-organized slime.

91 charges across four indictments—two of them state charges, two of them federal—against a man with seeming no regard for the truth except his own delusions and his gang of enablers.

91 alleged law-breaking deeds—deeds designed to crumble to bricks of our democracy—against Donald Trump and his gang of sycophants surrounding their bullying efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election by flipping Georgia from Biden to the sore-losing incumbent.

I use the word gang with all the intentionality of Alabama Republican lawmakers’ open defiance of the Supreme Court’s demand that they re-write the state’s racist, gerrymandered U.S. district lines to provide Black voters in the state with the semblance of a change to elect a candidate of their choosing.

I use it because Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis wielded a law she previously used to attack gang violence in Atlanta to hammer Trump with 41 counts in a 98-page filing.

In May 2022, Willis, in an 88-page indictment, charged rappers Young Thug and Gunna, as well as 26 others under the state’s RICO law, a descendant of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which became law in 1970 as a means of battling organized crime, a.k.a. the mafia. It allowed the prosecution of people in high places in a criminal organization—however they want to define one—along with the minions who actually doing the deeds.

In 1980, Georgia birthed its own RICO Act, making it illegal to participate in, acquire or control an “enterprise” with a “pattern of racketeering activity”, or even try to do so.

Georgia isn’t alone in using the law in an attempt to thwart local gangs. In May, 30 members and associates of two gangs based in Minneapolis, Minnesota—the Highs and Bloods—were hit with two RICO indictments. Charges include alleged and attempted murder, drug trafficking, robbery, and obstruction of justice.

RICO indictments typically include a flotilla of allegations, some only loosely connected to the primary charges. When announcing the charges against the rappers and others last year, Willis said: “It allows juries and the communities to see the complete picture of a crime, so they can truly be educated and have facts to weigh when they’re making a decision.”

Gunna and seven other defendants took plea deals before the end of last year; Grammy-winning Young Thug (Jeffery Lamar Williams on his birth certificate), however, still sits in jail awaiting jury selection (questioning began in January, yet, for various reasons, no one has yet been tabbed to serve) after pleading not guilty to eight counts. In July, he was denied bond for a fifth time. Seven other defendants in the case.

Hello, Thug Trump—couldn’t resist, sorry, not sorry.

I could be wrong, but probably not: Georgia just might be even less hospitable to Trump than it was in 2020.

Unlike the other indictments, President Trump would not be able to pardon himself, nor get off with a fine. Potentially, the Georgia charges include jail time.

A White House return also wouldn’t white-out Georgia’s charges, as it might for charges in Florida and Washington, D.C.

Moreover, there are tapes. Tapes with Trump demanding, with all intentionally, that the state’s top election official, a fellow Republican, “find” the votes he needed to win.

Young Thug’s attorneys dispute prosecutors’ claims that he and co-defendants are members of the Young Slime Life (YSL) game; they say the acronym touts the rapper’s label: Young Stoner Life.

A label that just might find its next hook in Thug Trump’s tapes.

“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” he is reported to have said.

…Just want to find…One more than we have…

One more than we have…

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