More indictments for former president Donald Trump, along with 18 co-conspirators, over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Trump’s meltdowns and specious accusations of voter fraud after his failed re-election were very public, and led directly to the unrest that broke into attempted insurrection on January 6th when his rally broke into the Capitol building to interfere with the ratification of the election.
In particular, a phone call he made to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, threatening him with criminal liability if he didn’t ‘find’ Trump 11,780 votes (the amount by which he lost Georgia’s popular vote) was shared widely, leaked by a member of his staff. Now that phone call, along with dozens of other acts, is a part of a nearly 100-page indictment against what prosecutors are calling a “criminal enterprise” to illegal take the election.
“The indictment alleges that rather than abide by Georgia’s legal process for election challenges, the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose office brought the case, said at a late-night news conference.
Along with Trump’s own actions, the report outlines how one of Trump’s lawyers tampered with voting machines in a rural Georgia county, and planned to steal data from a voting machine company.
Other defendants include Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Jeffrey Clerk, and a selection of lawyers who have violated laws in the aim of overturning the election results. They are asked to voluntarily surrender by noon on August 25, and Attorney Willis will be asking or a trial date within six months.
Between the federal indictments, these in Georgia, and charges in criminal cases in New York and Florida, Donald Trump currently has 91 charges pending against him. The previous record of charges against any sitting or former president was zero.
