ATLANTA (Scripps News) — Former President Donald Trump and 18 others were indicted Monday on charges they interfered in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
The 98-page indictment charges Trump with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer and numerous conspiracy charges.
The indictment in Georgia against former President Donald Trump is photographed Monday, Aug. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)
The 41-count felony indictment came after a long day of testimony before the grand jury and hours of waiting for the court clerk to process documents.
The indictment lists many who were in Trump’s inner circle in the days after the election was called in favor of Joe Biden. Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Jeffrey Clark and Sidney Powell are among the 18 other defendants.
“They knowingly and willfully joined conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Monday night.
The defendants are required to turn themselves in by noon on Aug. 25.
Willis said she intends to try all of the defendants at the same time. While a judge will set a court date, Willis said she hopes to try the case within the next six months.
Willis has been investigating this case for two years.
She had been on the job for just two days when Trump made a phone call that is a cornerstone to the case. On January 2, 2021, Trump contacted Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. In the call, which was recorded, Trump suggested officials help him “find 11,780 votes,” the number needed to flip the state from Biden to Trump.
The former president has maintained that the call was “perfect.”
This is the fourth indictment for Trump this year.
FILE – Former President Donald Trump speaks at a fundraiser event for the Alabama GOP, Friday, Aug. 4, 2023, in Montgomery, Ala. Just one month after Donald Trump’s January 2021 phone call to suggest Georgia’s secretary of state could overturn his election loss, district attorney Fani Willis announced she was looking into possibly illegal “attempts to influence” the results. (AP Photo/Butch Dill, File)
The first indictment came out of New York in April. The case involves hush-money payments and allegedly falsifying business records to conceal potentially damaging information ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
The second indictment was issued in June. Trump was charged with dozens of crimes related to improper storing and retention of classified government documents and then obstructing the investigation.
The third indictment came down on Aug. 1 over Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the events leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, when a group of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the Electoral College count from being certified.
Trump, who is running for president again in 2024, has denied wrongdoing in every case, claiming he is the subject of a political “witch hunt.”
READ THE FULL INDICTMENT HERE.
This story was originally published by Scripps News, an E.W. Scripps Company.
