Photo: courtesy of Democracy Now!
A grand jury in Georgia has indicted Donald Trump — and 18 others — and charged them with organizing a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. Trump faces a total of 13 counts in the indictment.
Others indicted include former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, several of Trump’s attorneys, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis, as well as former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark. This marks Donald Trump’s fourth indictment in just over four months.
The 41 felony count indictment is built around Georgia’s RICO law, which is often used to go after organized crime. This is Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis:
Fani Willis: “Every individual charged in the indictment is charged with one count of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act through participation in a criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia, and elsewhere to accomplish the illegal goal of allowing Donald J. Trump to seize the presidential term of office beginning on January 20th, ’21.”
Willis opened the probe after Trump pressured Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021 to “find 11,780 votes” — the margin Trump would have needed to defeat Joe Biden in Georgia. Part of the charges also stem from a breach of voting machines in Coffee County, about 200 miles from Atlanta. The indictment alleges the criminal enterprise operated in other states, including Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New Mexico.
Fani Willis has given Trump and his co-defendants until August 25 to turn themselves in. This all comes as Trump is the Republican front-runner in the 2024 race. We’ll have more on the story after headlines.
