GA has a pretty fucking grim history of using these laws to rob people of civil liberties in pretty bad ways. They have used it to crush freedom of speech with musicians and educators, all kinds of minimally-affiliated “gang” activity, and other bullshit like that. As you’d expect from a state that is pretty firmly in the hand of the anti-civil-rights GOP and Brian “I also used the authority of my office to interfere with my own election to ensure my own victory” Kemp.

But at least in this case, the baddies are definitely baddies.

much easier to prosecute this sort of thing under RICO in Georgia than with the equivalent federal law

The Atlantic had some commentary about how broad the Georgia indictment is, compared to the Federal one for Jan 6. Basically, Jack Smith is looking at the political calendar, and wants to have very narrow charges that can go to trial quickly. A broader, comprehensive set of charges would result in a more complicated, slower trial, with the possibility that Trump might win in 2024 and then just terminate the whole thing. If Smith wins the earlier trial, he can still come back and bring wider charges, against, say, all the co-conspirators, but the first trial needs to happen early.

The Georgia one is less constrained by this political calendar, and the DA can bring the broadest range of charges into play, to show most of what Trump & Co were doing.

The drawback to what Georgia is doing is setting a precedent for local prosecutors to bring charges against former Presidents. You can imagine political revenge by some rinky dink GOP prosecutor in Oklahoma or something indicting Biden out of spite.