Ron DeSantis plays dumb about Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn vote in Georgia’s 2020 election

Former President Donald Trump’s legal woes are global headlines, and they include attempts by Trump and 18 allies and subordinates to subvert and reverse 2020’s legitimate election results in Georgia.

Yet despite the widely reported indictment from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Gov. Ron DeSantis professes a fundamental ignorance of the issues at play in a Wednesday presser with Iowa reporters, suggesting that whatever happened may not have even been a crime.

“In terms of the specifics of these things, I’m not as well read up on some of it. I think the idea of bringing a RICO case, you know, they have Mark Meadows named in it. So I, I know Mark, they don’t even accuse him of committing a crime,” DeSantis said.

“They just say he did certain things or somehow part of RICO. So I think that there’s a lot of questions there,” DeSantis added.

The Associated Press sums up the wide-ranging indictment as one that “accuses the former president, his former chief of staff, Trump’s attorneys and the ex-New York mayor of being members of a ‘criminal organization’ and ‘enterprise’ that operated in Georgia and other states,” by way of charging the former President and his cronies with flouting the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Accused co-conspirators are already rolling over and pleading guilty, with four having settled, including attorney and talk show host Jenna Ellis, who offered a mea culpa just this week.

Trump’s legal issues have presented a sordid backdrop to the 2024 Presidential Election so far, but DeSantis has been less concerned with the former President’s guilt or innocence than the electoral consequences of the publicity. The Governor has claimed indictments have “elevated” the former President with the GOP base, giving him “publicity.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.