Donald Trump and 18 Allies Indicted in Georgia for Election Fraud Scheme


Key Highlights :

1. Trump and 18 allies were indicted in Georgia with scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.
2. The indictment charges Trump with making false statements and writings for a series of claims he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other state election officials on Jan. 2, 2021, 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.”
3. The indictment also mentions the now infamous Dec. 18, 2020, session in the Oval Office, where Trump allies including Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, proposed ordering the military to seize voting machines and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of voter fraud in Georgia and other crucial states Trump had lost.




     Donald Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted in Georgia on Monday, accused of scheming to illegally overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. This marks the fourth criminal case brought against the former president and the second this month to allege that he attempted to subvert the results of the vote.

     Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis issued a 97-page indictment that detailed the acts of Trump and his allies to undo his defeat in the battleground state. The indictment accused the former president, lawyers, and other top aides of forming a criminal conspiracy aimed at keeping him in power.

     The indictment alleged that Trump and his associates refused to accept his election loss and knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in his favor. Furthermore, the indictment accused Trump and his allies of hectoring Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to find enough votes to keep him in power, pestering officials with bogus claims of voter fraud, attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters, and tampering with voting machines in one Georgia county in order to steal data.

     The indictment also named former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani; and a Trump administration Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, as defendants. Multiple other lawyers who devised legally dubious ideas aimed at overturning the results, including John Eastman, Sidney Powell, and Kenneth Chesebro, were also charged.

     The indictment described the former president of the United States, the former White House chief of staff, Trump’s attorneys, and the former mayor of New York as members of a “criminal organization” who were part of an “enterprise” that operated in Georgia and other states. This language is normally associated with mobsters and gang leaders.

     The indictment concluded a remarkable series of criminal cases—four in five months, each in a different city—that would be daunting for anyone, never mind a defendant simultaneously running for president. It came just two weeks after the Justice Department special counsel charged him in a vast conspiracy to overturn the election. This demonstrated how prosecutors after lengthy investigations that followed the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol have now, two-and-a-half years later, taken steps to hold Trump to account for an assault on the underpinnings of American democracy.

     The charges against Trump included violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) act, as well as other crimes such as conspiracy to commit forgery and conspiracy to commit false statements. The indictment also accused Trump of making false statements and writings for a series of claims he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other state election officials on Jan. 2, 2021.

     The indictment also mentioned the Dec. 18, 2020, session in the Oval Office, where Trump allies including Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, proposed ordering the military to seize voting machines and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of voter fraud in Georgia and other crucial states Trump had lost. Prosecutors said that this meeting at the White House, which included Giuliani, was part of an effort to “influence the outcome” of the election.

     Republican allies quickly rallied to Trump’s defense, with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy writing on the platform formerly known as Twitter, “Americans see through this desperate sham.” As indictments mount, Trump—the leading Republican candidate for president in 2024—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.

     The 19 defendants in the Georgia case will be allowed to voluntarily surrender by noon Aug. 25. District Attorney Fani Willis also said she plans to ask for a trial date within six months.



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