Arrest warrants issued after Trump, 18 allies indicted in Georgia over 2020 election meddling
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Donald Trump and 18 allies were indicted in Georgia on Monday with scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, with prosecutors turning to a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse the former president, lawyers and other top aides in a sweeping criminal conspiracy aimed at keeping him in power.
Donald Trump and 18 allies were indicted in Georgia on Monday with scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, with prosecutors turning to a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse the former president, lawyers and other top aides in a sweeping criminal conspiracy aimed at keeping him in power.
The 97-page indictment details dozens of acts by Trump and his allies to undo his defeat in the battleground state, including hectoring Georgia's Republican secretary of state to find enough votes to keep him power, pestering officials with bogus claims of voter fraud and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of electoral college electors favorable to Trump. It also outlines a scheme to tampering with voting machines in one Georgia county and steal data.
"Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump," says the indictment issued Monday night by the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Other defendants included former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani; and a Trump administration Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, who advanced his efforts to undo his election loss in Georgia. Multiple other lawyers who devised legally dubious ideas aimed at overturning the results, including John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, were also charged.
Willis said the defendants would be allowed to voluntarily surrender by noon Aug. 25. She also said she plans to ask for a trial date within six months.
The document describes 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 -- language that conjures up the operations of mob bosses and gang leaders.
The indictment bookends a remarkable crush 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.
