Attorney Page Pate, who has been a criminal defense attorney handling both state and federal criminal cases in Georgia and throughout the United States for over twenty-five years, is frequently contacted by local and national media outlets for his legal analysis of high-profile cases appearing in the news.
In this case, WGCL-TV (CBS 46) interviewed Page regarding the investigation of allegations that President Donald Trump attempted to influence the 2020 President Election through the call or calls he made to the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger.
Page tells CBS 46 that he hasn’t seen a local District Attorney prosecute a former president, and says that he thinks “the call that Trump made, or the several calls that Trump made, to Georgia elections officials are very problematic, clearly inappropriate,” and that “the question about whether or not there’s criminal conduct there I think will depend on how much the prosecutor can show Trump’s specific intent to change the results in Georgia.”
On the topic of possible criminal charges, Page explains that it could result in either a misdemeanor or felony charge, but he doesn’t think that it would go beyond a misdemeanor. He says that “The charges would be very serious, but I think the DA is perhaps looking at this too broadly…I don’t think there is much evidence to support a racketeering charge, or any sort of violent conduct that can be tied directly to Trump here in Georgia. What I think is the clearest potential violation would be the solicitation of election fraud.” Page further explains that he does think there is enough to support a misdemeanor charge but that he finds “it really hard to believe that a district attorney would want to pursue a former President over what may be at best a misdemeanor.”
“I think the call that Trump made, or the several calls that Trump made, to Georgia elections officials are very problematic, clearly inappropriate,” Pate told Mason. “The question about whether or not there’s criminal conduct there I think will depend on how much the prosecutor can show Trump’s specific intent to change the results in Georgia,” he added.
