Donald Trump and 18 Allies Indicted in Georgia for Attempts to Overturn Election Loss
ATLANTA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies have been indicted in Georgia for their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. Prosecutors used a statute typically associated with mobsters to accuse Trump, his lawyers, and aides of engaging in a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in power.
The nearly 100-page indictment outlines numerous acts by Trump and his allies to undo his defeat. These include pressuring Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to find enough votes for him to win, harassing an election worker who faced false claims of fraud, and attempting to convince Georgia lawmakers to disregard the will of voters and appoint new electoral college electors who favored Trump.
One particularly audacious episode mentioned in the indictment involves one of Trump’s lawyers plotting to access voting machines in a rural Georgia county and steal data from a voting machine company.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought the case, described the defendants as engaging in a “criminal racketeering enterprise” to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result. Willis plans to seek a trial date within six months and intends to try the defendants collectively.
The indictment marks another significant development in the legal challenges Trump is currently facing. Just two weeks ago, he was charged by the Justice Department special counsel in a vast conspiracy to overturn the election. These recent indictments demonstrate that prosecutors, following extensive investigations since the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, are taking steps to hold Trump accountable for his assault on American democracy.
While the Georgia case overlaps with Trump’s recent indictment in Washington, it involves a broader scope of defendants. The indictment accuses Trump, his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump’s attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and other individuals of being members of a “criminal organization” and “enterprise” that operated in Georgia and other states.
The indictment’s release was preceded by a chaotic series of events at the courthouse. A list of criminal charges against the former president was briefly and mysteriously posted on a county website before being taken down. Although the indictment had not been formally issued at that time, Trump and his allies used the incident to attack the integrity of the investigation, claiming that the process was rigged.
Trump’s legal team, in a statement after the indictment’s release, criticized the prosecution and claimed that it relied on witnesses with personal and political interests. The lawyers argued that the indictment represented the next chapter in a book of lies and characterized the events as shocking and absurd.
Many of the acts outlined in the Georgia indictment were already widely reported. These include a call in which Trump urged Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss and false statements made by Trump and Giuliani about election irregularities.
Giuliani, specifically, is charged with making false statements to lawmakers regarding alleged voting machine malfunctions in Georgia and Michigan. The indictment also accuses individuals of attempting to influence and intimidate election workers on behalf of Trump and his allies.
In addition to the Georgia and Washington cases, Trump faces separate federal and state indictments related to illegal hoarding of classified documents and falsifying business records.
As the indictments against him pile up, Trump has positioned himself as the victim of Democratic prosecutors out to get him. He continues to campaign and fundraise around these themes, emphasizing that he is the only former president to face criminal charges. Republican allies have swiftly come to Trump’s defense, dismissing the indictments as a desperate sham.
Contributing to this report were journalists from the Associated Press in various locations, including Atlanta, New York, Savannah, Boston, Washington, Chicago, Boise, Richmond, and Baltimore.