Donald Trump and 18 of his associates were indicted in Georgia on Monday for their attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. Prosecutors used a statute typically associated with mobsters to accuse Trump, his lawyers, and other aides of a “criminal enterprise” aimed at keeping him in power. The indictment, which spans almost 100 pages, outlines numerous actions taken by Trump and his allies to reverse his loss, including pressuring Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to find enough votes for him to win, harassing an election worker, and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to disregard the will of the voters. The indictment also details a plot involving one of Trump’s lawyers to access voting machines in a rural Georgia county and steal data from a voting machine company. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought the case, stated that the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result instead of following the state’s legal process for election challenges. The indictment includes former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, and Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who aided Trump’s efforts to reverse his election loss in Georgia. Other lawyers, including Sidney Powell and John Eastman, who promoted legally questionable ideas to overturn the election results, were also charged. Willis announced that the defendants would be given the opportunity to surrender by August 25 and that she plans to seek a trial date within six months. The indictment comes just two weeks after Trump was charged by the Justice Department Special Counsel in a vast conspiracy to overturn the election, indicating that prosecutors have taken steps to hold Trump accountable for his attack on American democracy. The Georgia indictment covers some of the same ground as Trump’s recent indictment in Washington, but it involves a larger number of defendants, including close Trump aides who were referred to as unindicted co-conspirators in the Washington case. The Georgia indictment alleges a widespread pattern of criminal conduct beyond just the former president.



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