Former President Donald Trump — the favorite to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination — has again been criminally indicted, CNN reported, this time after an investigation into his attempts to interfere with the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
The 10 indictments came on Monday evening with the names of those indicted and the charges, but the indictment itself will not be read aloud.
"Defendant Donald John Trump lost the United States presidential election held on November 3, 2020. One of the states he lost was Georgia," the indictment reads. "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 ofthe election in favor of Trump. That conspiracy contained common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts ofracketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states."
The charges, which have been expected for some time, were handed down by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who compelled 75 witnesses — ranging from Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani to U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — to testify before the grand jury she convened between last May and December.
“The work is accomplished,” Willis told local Atlanta news outlets at the end of July. “We’ve been working for two-and-a-half years. We’re ready to go.”
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The Georgia indictment is the fourth criminal case brought against the former president — all since March — with two now surrounding the outcome of the 2020 election.
Trump's team allegedly worked intensely to try to overturn the election result in Georgia, which narrowly backed Biden by just over 11,000 votes in 2020. He called Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, demanding that he "find" enough extra votes to reverse the election result.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have," Trump is heard saying on the call.
Georgia was also one of several states where a group of Republican operatives, including former Georgia Republican Party Chair David Shafer, stood as fake electors as part of a plot to have former Vice President Mike Pence throw out the election results during the congressional certification.
Pence did not go along with this scheme after being advised by conservative legal scholar Michael Luttig that it wasn't constitutional.
Portions of the Georgia grand jury report were released this February, including findings that “one or more witnesses” committed perjury. In March, Trump’s legal team moved to have the case thrown out, but just last month the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Trump.
Besides Trump, the investigation also targeted the state’s 16 fake electors who secretly met in the State Capitol in December 2020 to allegedly fraudulently sign official paperwork certifying the election for Trump even though now President Joe Biden won the state.
Beyond Georgia, Trump's other felony charges include those of business fraud in Manhattan brought by prosecutor Alvin Bragg, and a pair of federal indictments brought by special counsel Jack Smith: Espionage Act and obstruction charges for a stash of highly classified defense information kept at Mar-a-Lago, and conspiracy charges related to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
In June, Trump pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he mishandled classified documents since leaving the White House. That trial date has been set for May 20, 2024, in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Then there’s the hush money case centered on payments Trump made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels allegedly to buy her silence in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
In May, a Manhattan grand juryindicted Trump on 34 felony counts tied to falsifying business records, which he pleaded not guilty to. That trial is slated to begin on March 25, 2024.
Even before this new round of charges, Trump was the only former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges, creating a legally uncharted situation in the U.S. justice system.
