Trump indicted for efforts to overturn 2020 election loss in Georgia
Former President Donald Trump has been indicted over his efforts to overturn the results of his 2020 presidential election loss in Georgia
Donald Trump has been indicted by a grand jury in Fulton County for meddling in the results of the 2020 election, which he lost in the state.
A grand jury voted Monday evening to bring a total of 13 felony charges against the former president, including violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, law, as well as violating his oath of office.
Eighteen people were indicted alongside former Trump, including some of his closest advisers and lawyers, as well as Georgia-based attorneys and political operatives.
They include attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, and Jeffrey Clark, as well as Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
Ray Smith and Robert Cheeley, lawyers working for Trump in Georgia, also were indicted for allegedly lying — Smith to a Georgia Senate committee, and Cheeley to the Georgia Grand Jury.
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Three of the 16 people who falsely claimed to be Georgia’s electoral college voters were indicted: David Shafer, then the state GOP chairman; Shawn Still, who was GOP finance chairman; and Cathleen Alston Latham.
Trump campaign official Michael Roman, who was allegedly involved in the fake electors scheme, also was indicted.
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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis says former President Donald Trump and 18 others charged alongside him have nearly two weeks to surrender.
“I am giving the defendants the opportunity to voluntarily surrender no later than noon on Friday, the 25th day of August 2023,” Willis said in a news conference shortly before midnight Monday.
Willis said she plans to try all 19 defendants together. She said she will ask for a trial to start within six months but added that scheduling decisions will be made by a judge.
She said the defendants are charged with conspiring to allow Trump “to seize the presidential term of office beginning on Jan. 20, 2021.”
The process played out live on national television, as cameras inside the courthouse staked out the clerk’s office, where the indictment paperwork was signed and walked down to the courtroom, where it was presented to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney.
The criminal case comes as Trump leads the field of Republicans seeking their party’s 2024 presidential nomination. It's his fourth indictment this year, following charges in two federal cases, as well as a hush-money case in New York.
Trump famously called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, and suggested the state’s top elections official could help “find” the votes Trump needed to beat Biden. It was the release of a recording of that phone call that prompted Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to open her investigation about a month later.
Trump has repeatedly accused Willis’ team of haranguing him over what he has described as a “perfect phone call.” In the day leading up to the indictment, Trump posted to his Truth Social site that Willis “is using a potential Indictment of me, and other innocent people, as a campaign and fundraising CON JOB,” adding, , all based on a PERFECT PHONE CALL, AS PRESIDENT, CHALLENGING ELECTION FRAUD — MY DUTY & RIGHT!”