Former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted by a grand jury in Georgia on Monday on charges that they formed a criminal racketeering enterprise in an attempt to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The nearly 100-page indictment, which comes after an over two-year investigation, is the fourth criminal indictment levelled against the former president this year — Trump has ongoing cases in New York, Miami, and Washington, D.C.
[RELATED: Biden DOJ Indicts Trump for Jan. 6 Role]
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis initially launched an investigation into Trump’s alleged participation in a scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia in February 2021.
Her investigation was spurred on by a Jan. 2, 2021 phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he told Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes in order to overturn the state’s election results.
The indictment lists 161 other “Acts of Racketeering Activity” and “Overt Acts in Furtherance of the Conspiracy,” which include other telephone calls to Georgia lawmakers to persuade them to certify an alternate slate of electors, calls to convince lawmakers of claims of voter fraud, harassment of election workers, and an alleged plot by a member of Trump’s legal team to access and steal data from Georgia’s voting machines.
One such act, Act 22, which the indictment lists as a violation of Georgia’s racketeering laws, is Trump tweeting in 2020 about One America News Network’s coverage of hearings on the Georgia election.
“Georgia hearings now on @OANN. Amazing!” Trump tweeted in December 2020.
“This [tweet] was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy,” the indictment reads.
“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,” Willis said in a press conference following the unsealing of the indictment late Monday.
Earlier on Monday, Willis’ office appeared to accidentally post to a county website — and then quickly delete — a list of criminal charges that were to be brought against Trump before the grand jury had finished convening and voted.
When asked about the accidental post, Willis said “I am not an expert on clerk’s duties or even administrative duties, I wouldn’t even know how to work that system, and so I’m not going to speculate.”
“I make decisions in this office based on the facts and the laws. The laws is completely nonpartisan, that’s how decisions are made in every case,” Willis said.
“To date, this office has indicted, since I’ve been sitting as a district attorney, over 12,000 cases,” she said. “This is the 11th RICO indictment. We followed the same process, we look at the facts, we look at the law, and we bring charges.”
In a post to Truth Social Monday, Trump used the apparent document posting error to call Willis “out of control” and “corrupt,” and pointed to the timing of the indictment as being politically motivated.
“GA’s radical Democrat District Attorney Fani Willis is a rabid partisan who is campaigning and fundraising on a platform of prosecuting President Trump through these bogus indictments,” the Trump campaign said in a statement Monday.
“Ripping a page from Crooked Joe Biden’s playbook, Willis had strategically stalled her investigation to try and maximally interfere with the 2024 presidential race and damage the dominant Trump campaign. All of these corrupt Democrat attempts will fail,” the GOP frontrunner’s statement read.
Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday that he will be presenting a “Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT” on election fraud in Georgia next Monday at 11 a.m. from his gold club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The former president said that based on the results of this “CONCLUSIVE Report,” all the charges against him and others should be dropped.
Each of the 19 total defendants named in the indictment are charged with one count of violating the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act — normally brought against mob bosses and gang leaders — and at least one other charge related to furthering the alleged criminal enterprise.
Donald Trump is facing 13 counts on the following charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; Solicitation of Violation of Oath By Public Officer; Conspiracy to Commit Impersonating a Public Officer; Conspiracy to Commit Forgery in the First Degree; Conspiracy to Commit False Statements and Writings; Conspiracy to Commit Filing False Documents; Filing False Documents; and False Statements and Writings.
There is significant overlap between the defendants named in this latest indictment in Georgia, and the co-conspirators named in the federal indictment related to Jan. 6 brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith just two weeks ago.
[RELATED: “This sounds like a setup to me”: Tucker Carlson Interviews Chief of Capitol Police on Jan 6]
Former Mayor of New York and member of Trump’s legal team Rudy Giuliani, co-conspirator no. 1 in the federal indictment, also faces 13 counts in Georgia.
Trump attorneys John Eastman, co-conspirator no. 2, faces nine counts; Sidney Powell, co-conspirator no. 3, faces six counts, Jeffrey Clark, co-conspirator no. 4, faces two counts; and Kenneth Chesebro, co-conspirator no. 5, faces seven counts.
Willis said that she will seek to try all 19 defendants together, who have until noon on Aug. 25 to voluntarily surrender.
Willis also said that she is proposing a trial date within the next six months to the presiding judge.
The Fulton County Sheriff said earlier this month that if Trump is indicted, he will be booked and have his mugshot taken at Fulton County Jail.
“We’ll have mugshots ready for you,” the sheriff said.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in a post on X Monday that President Biden has “weaponized government” against his leading political opponent to “interfere in the 2024 election.”
“Now a radical DA in Georgia is following Biden’s lead by attacking President Trump and using it to fundraise her political career,” McCarthy said. “Americans see through this desperate sham.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who served as the lead prosecutor in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump and on the Jan. 6 Select Committee, said that after the Georgia indictment “our democracy and the rule of law will again be put to a test.”
“So why does yet another indictment matter?” Rep. Schiff said on X Tuesday. “Trump attempted to stay in power after losing his re-election. That has never happened before in our history.”
“If he is allowed to escape accountability for that, other presidents will attempt to do the same,” Schiff said.
“Voters need to know that their vote matters. And elected officials need to know that they are not above the law,” he added. “We can’t allow a president to seek to subvert an election and if they succeed, they are president for life. And if they fail, there is no consequence. That is one sure way to lose our democracy.”
Read the full indictment brought against Trump and his allies in Georgia below:
