1 year ago
UPDATE:
A grand jury in Georgia has indicted former President Donald Trump and numerous allies on racketeering charges for a sweeping attempt to corrupt the 2020 election by subverting Joe Biden’s victory in that state.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis leveled the state-law charges Monday night after a two-year investigation. In addition to Trump, Willis charged former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and attorneys Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Jeff Clark, Ken Chesebro and Jenna Ellis, key figures in Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.
Willis charged the group with orchestrating a sprawling effort to disrupt the election, including by submitting false slates of presidential electors to Congress, making false representations to courts, misusing the power of the Justice Department and pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election himself.
It’s the fourth and by far the most wide-ranging set of criminal charges Trump faces as he seeks to reclaim the Oval Office in 2024. The indictment comes two weeks after special counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with a federal conspiracy to derail the transfer of power.
PREVIOUS STORY:
A grand jury that heard evidence about former President Donald Trump's bid to subvert Georgia's election in 2020 returned 10 indictments Monday, according to a photo of the cover sheet turned in by court officials.
The indictments were expected to be unsealed Monday night, but no details about who was charged or for what alleged crimes was available deep into the evening. It was not clear if all 10 indictments pertained to the Trump investigation.
Still, a parade of witnesses — including former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan — traversed the Fulton County superior courthouse on Monday as expectations for a new wave of charges against Trump built throughout the day. Earlier in the day, Trump criticized Duncan and urged him not to appear before the grand jury.
Though the precise range of charges and defendants is not clear, Trump is widely expected to be at the center of the criminal case, which could include sprawling racketeering allegations.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation has been years in the making. She empaneled a “special grand jury” in early 2022 — a quirk of Georgia law that permits prosecutors to pursue complex, focused investigations that don’t fit within the bounds of the traditional grand jury process. Though that panel spent months hauling in some of Trump’s top aides and allies, it had no power to issue indictments. Willis had to take the evidence it amassed and present it to a traditional grand jury in order to secure criminal charges.
An indictment of Trump would be the fourth criminal case against him since March. He faces charges in Manhattan for allegedly falsifying business records to cover up an affair with a porn star; federal charges in Florida from special counsel Jack Smith for hoarding classified military secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate; and federal charges in Washington, D.C., also from Smith’s team, for his election scheme.
English (US)