Donald Trump indicted on conspiracy & racketeering charges in Georgia over 2020 election interference
DONALD Trump has been indicted on conspiracy and racketeering charges over allegations that he tried to overturn the 2020 election.
The rap sheet, which was issued in Georgia on Monday, is the fourth indictment that the former president has faced this year.
Trump has been accused of several conspiracy charges, soliciting a public official to violate their oath, making false statements and writings, and violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) law.
He could be hit with a prison sentence of up to 20 years if convicted of violating the RICO law.
Trump and his allies have been accused of refusing to accept his election loss and "knowingly and willfully joined conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump."
Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, Trump campaign lawyers Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and Georgia GOP chair David Shafer are among the defendants that have been named.
Nineteen defendants, including Trump, are named in the indictment.
The complete list includes:
- Donald Trump
- Rudy Giuliani
- Mark Meadows
- John Eastman
- Kenneth Chesebro
- Jeffrey Clark
- Jenna Ellis
- Robert Cheeley
- Mike Roman
- David Shafer
- Shawn Still
- Stephen Lee
- Harrison Floyd
- Trevian Kutti
- Sidney Powell
- Cathy Latham
- Scott Hall
- Misty Hampton
- Ray Smith
THE CHARGES
The indictment lists 41 charges against the 19 defendants.
"Defendant Donald John Trump lost the United States presidential election held on November 3, 2020. One of the states he lost was Georgia," the indictment reads.
Earlier on Monday, before the grand jury vote, the website for Fulton County briefly displayed a list of criminal charges against Trump.
The document was quickly taken down.
Trump's attorneys, Drew Findling and Jennifer Little, ripped the district attorney's office for the move, saying they showed no respect for the grand jury process.
"The Fulton County District Attorney's Office has once again shown that they have no respect for the integrity of the grand jury process," the statement read.
"This was not a simple administrative mistake. A proposed indictment should only be in the hands of the District Attorney's Office, yet it somehow made its way to the clerk's office and was assigned a case number and a judge before the grand jury even deliberated.
"This is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception."
When questioned by reporters on Monday night, Willis declined to provide information on the document, which was later dubbed "fictitious."
"I can't tell you anything about what you refer to," the district attorney said, adding that she is "not an expert in clerk's duties or even administrative duties."
Trump branded Willis a "phony" hours before the indictment was filed.
"Would someone please tell the Fulton County grand jury that I did not tamper with the election," the former president wrote on his Truth Social feed.
"The people that tampered with it were the ones that rigged it, and sadly, phoney Fani Willis, who has shockingly allowed Atlanta to become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world, has no interest in seeing the massive amount of evidence available, or finding out who these people that committed this crime are.
A statement from the Trump campaign called the indictments "bogus" and accused Willis of trying to "maximally interfere with the 2024 presidential race and damage the dominant Trump campaign."
"They are taking away President Trump's First Amendment right to free speech, and the right to challenge a rigged and stolen election that the Democrats do all the time.
"The ones who should be prosecuted are the ones who created the corruption."
WAVE OF INDICTMENTS
The wave of indictments against the former president began in March when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed 34 felony charges against Trump for what prosecutors described as a hush-money scheme.
Prosecutors said Trump and his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, made a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 campaign to silence claims of an affair.
The former US president also allegedly paid a former Trump Tower doorman $30,000 to silence his claims that Trump had a "child out of wedlock."
Trump is also facing charges in a separate case in Miami brought by special counsel Jack Smith, where he's accused of mishandling national secret documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
Federal officials found more than 80 boxes of classified documents in Trump's estate, including six with the highest level of classification in his office, according to court records.
FBI officials said boxes were found in several rooms at Mar-a-Lago, including the Lake Room, various storage rooms, on the stage of the White and Gold Ballroom, Pine Hall, and the Trump family suite.
Trump also took boxes of documents to his golf club in Bedminster, , according to the indictment.
The rally turned violent when the MAGA mob breached Capitol Hill, smashing through windows and doors and clashing with Capitol police officers.
Four rioters died during the siege, including Ashli Babbitt, 34, a former Air Force veteran who was shot by a Capitol police officer, Kevin Greeson, 55, who suffered a heart attack during the breach, Rosanne Boyland, 34, and Benjamin Philips, 50.
Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick also died after the incident.
In the years since, over 1,000 rioters have been arrested and hit with a slew of federal charges, including assault on law enforcement officials, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, trespassing, and disrupting Congress.
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As of May, approximately 485 defendants had been sentenced - 277 were handed time behind bars, while 113 were sentenced to home detention.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in all the cases against him.