ATLANTA — An Atlanta-based grand jury on Monday indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants on state charges that include racketeering as they "unlawfully conspired and endeavored to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise" after Trump lost the election in Georgia.
Donald Trump is charged with 13 of the 41 counts in the 98-page indictment unsealed shortly before 11 p.m. There are an additional 30 unindicted co-conspirators. Trump has been indicted in three other cases — two federal ones and in New York for a total of 91 criminal charges.
The thread that connects all the individuals is that they’ve been charged under RICO — the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Politics
What is Georgia's RICO Act, and how could it affect Trump?
Besides Trump those indicted are:
• Judy Giuliani, Trump lawyer, whose 13 counttie Trump for the most.
• Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff
• John Eastman, Trump lawyer
• Kenneth Chesebro, pro-Trump lawyer
• Jeffrey Clark, top Justice Department official
• Jenna Ellis, Trump campaign lawyer
• Robert Cheeley, lawyer who promoted fraud claims
• Mike Roman, Trump campaign official
• David Shafer, Georgia GOP chair and fake elector
• Shawn Still, fake GOP elector
• Stephen Lee, pastor tied to intimidation of election workers
• Harrison Floyd, leader of Black Voices for Trump
• Trevian Kutti, publicist tied to intimidation of election workers
• Sidney Powell, Trump campaign lawyer
• Cathy Latham, fake GOP elector tied to Coffee County breachS
• Scott Hall, tied to Coffee County election system breach
• Misty Hampton, Coffee County elections supervisor
• Ray Smith, lawyer who represented Trump in litigation aimed at reversing Georgia’s 2020 election results.
During a late-night news conference, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis announced that the 19 defendants have until noon on Aug. 25 to "voluntarily surrender."
Willis told reporters that it will be up to a judge to set the date of the trial, but wants it to begin within six months. Willis said she intends to try all the defendants at the same trial.
Politics
Timeline of events leading up to Donald Trump's indictment in Georgia
Attorneys for former President Donald Trump released a statement calling the grand jury presentation.
“We look forward to a detailed review of this indictment which is undoubtedly just as flawed and unconstitutional as this entire process has been,” Trump attorneys Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg wrote in the statement.
"The events that have unfolded today have been shocking and absurd, starting with the leak of a presumed and premature indictment before the witnesses had testified or the grand jurors had deliberated and ending with the District Attorney being unable to offer any explanation .... This one-sided grand jury presentation relied on witnesses who harbor their own personal and political interests— some of whom ran campaigns touting their efforts against the accused and/or profited from book deals and employment opportunities as a result."
In an introduction to the indictment, prosecutors allege there was a conspiracy to change the outcome of the 2020 election “in favor of” Trump.
"Defendant Donald John Trump lost the United States presidential election held on November 3, 2020. One of the states he lost was Georgia. Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump. That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states," the indictment reads.
The charges include False Statements and Solicitation of State Legislatures and high-ranking state officials, the creation and distribution of false electoral college documents, the harassment of election workers, the solicitation of Justice Department officials, the solicitation of then-Vice President Mike Pence, the unlawful breach of election equipment and acts of obstruction.
The historic indictment is the fourth criminal case that Trump – who is currently leading the Republican field in the 2024 White House race – is now facing.
Unlike the election subversion charges brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, Willis’ case will be insulated from any potential Trump interference if he is reelected in 2024. He will not be able to pardon himself or his allies of any state convictions, nor will he be able to order Fulton County to dismiss the charges.
The Justice Department special counsel only charged Trump in a vast conspiracy to overturn the election.
As indictments mount, Trump often invokes his distinction as the only former president to face criminal charges. He is campaigning and fundraising around these themes, portraying himself as the victim of Democratic prosecutors out to get him though Republicans are witnesses against him.
In an email soliciting fundraising for his campaign, sent out shortly after the indictment was made public Monday night, Trump called the Georgia case “the FOURTH ACT of Election Interference on behalf of the Democrats in an attempt to keep the White House under Crooked Joe’s control and JAIL his single greatest opponent of the 2024 election.”
Republican allies once again quickly rallied to Trump’s defense. "Americans see through this desperate sham," House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wrote on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The grand jury met for roughly 10 hours Monday before handing up charges.
Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who for months has been presiding over the grand jury investigation, at 9 p.m. was presented by clerk's office officials with a set of papers in a courtroom packed with reporters anticipating news.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has been assigned to oversee the case. He joined the county bench in February.
Politics
What is Georgia's RICO Act, and how could it affect Trump?
The grand jury heard from witnesses into the evening Monday in the election subversion investigatio, a long day of testimony punctuated by the mysterious and brief appearance on a county website of a list of criminal charges against the former president that prosecutors later disavowed.
The process hit an unexpected snag in the middle of the day, when Reuters reported on a document listing criminal charges to be brought against Trump, including state racketeering counts, conspiracy to commit false statements and solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.
Reuters, which later published a copy of the document, said the filing was taken down quickly. A spokesperson for Willis said the report of charges being filed was "inaccurate," but declined to comment further on a kerfuffle that the Trump legal team rapidly jumped on to attack the integrity of the investigation.
Trump and his allies, who have characterized the investigation as politically motivated, immediately seized on the apparent error to claim that the process was rigged. Trump’s campaign aimed to fundraise off it, sending out an email with the since-deleted document embedded.
"The Grand Jury testimony has not even FINISHED – but it’s clear the District Attorney has already decided how this case will end," Trump wrote in the email, which included links to give money to his campaign. "This is an absolute DISGRACE."
Former Lieutenant Gov. Geoff Duncan, who over the weekend said he'd also been asked to testify Tuesday, instead appeared before the grand jury Monday. He told reporters outside the courthouse that the 2020 election had been “fair and legal” and said now was the “opportunity to get the real story out.”
Former Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan, who had been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury, said as she left the Fulton County courthouse late Monday morning that she had been questioned for about 40 minutes. Former Democratic state Rep. Bee Nguyen also confirmed that she testified. News outlets reported that Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the secretary of state’s office, was seen arriving at the courthouse earlier Monday.
"No individual is above the law, and I will continue to fully cooperate with any legal proceedings seeking the truth and protecting our democracy," Nguyen said in a statement.
Nguyen and Jordan attended legislative hearings in December 2020 during which Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney, and others made false claims of widespread election fraud in Georgia. Eastman also appeared during at least one of those hearings and said the election had not been held in compliance with Georgia law and that lawmakers should appoint a new slate of electors.
Sterling and his boss, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — both Republicans — forcefully pushed back against allegations of widespread problems with Georgia's election.
Trump famously called Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, and suggested the state's top elections official could help “find” the 11,718 votes Trump needed to beat Biden. It was the release of a recording of that phone call that prompted Willis to open her investigation about a month later.
The indictment charges Trump with making false statements and writings for a series of claims he made toRaffensperger and other state election officials, including that up to 300,000 ballots “were dropped mysteriously into the rolls” in the 2020 election, that more than 4,500 people voted who weren’t on registration lists and that a Fulton County election worker, Ruby Freeman, was a “professional vote scammer.”
