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| Donald Trump Getty Image |
Former US President Donald Trump has been charged with attempting to alter the outcome of his 2020 election loss in the state of Georgia. He and 18 others have been indicted on multiple counts, including racketeering, in a 41-charge document issued by the Fulton County grand jury.
This indictment marks the fourth time that Mr. Trump has faced criminal charges this year alone. He has vehemently denied these accusations in all cases.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis initiated an investigation in February 2021 into allegations of election interference involving Trump and his associates.
Among the individuals indicted late on Monday night are former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former White House lawyer John Eastman, and a former Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark.
The indictment alleges that the co-conspirators "knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully alter the outcome of the election in favor of Trump."
The charges also label the defendants as a "criminal organization," accusing them of various crimes, including:
- False statements and writings
- Impersonation of a public officer
- Forgery
- Filing false documents
- Witness tampering
- Unauthorized computer access
- Conspiracy to defraud the state
- Theft and perjury
The most serious charge, violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. RICO is designed to help prosecutors connect the dots between those who commit crimes and those who give them instructions, typically targeting organized criminal networks.
Trump, who is currently a frontrunner for the Republican Party's nomination for the next presidential race, has claimed that the investigation by District Attorney Willis, a Democrat, is politically motivated.
In a statement, the Trump campaign described the district attorney as a "partisan extremist" who filed "these baseless indictments" to interfere with the 2024 presidential race and "tarnish the strong Trump movement."
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| Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willi. Getty Image |
"This latest coordinated attack by a biased prosecutor from a Democratic jurisdiction not only betrays the trust of the American people but also exposes the true motivations driving their fabricated accusations," the statement said.
Earlier on Monday, confusion arose when a list of criminal charges against Trump appeared on a Fulton County website before the grand jury had even voted on an indictment. The filing included charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit fraud, and making false statements.
A spokesperson for Ms. Willis stated that the document was "fictitious" but did not explain how it ended up on the court website.
Trump and his allies seized on this apparent clerical error to claim that the process was rigged. Trump is already facing federal charges in Washington, D.C., for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results, where he lost to President Joe Biden, a Democrat. Ms. Willis' investigation focuses specifically on Georgia, a pivotal battleground state in the US election, where Trump narrowly lost. In January 2021, he was recorded in a phone call urging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" 11,780 votes, the number he would need to surpass Biden's margin in the state.
At least eight individuals who had falsely posed as electors claiming Trump's victory in the state have reached immunity deals in exchange for cooperating with Fulton County prosecutors.
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