A version of this story appeared in the On Background newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive On Background delivered directly to your inbox each Friday.
Former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants were indicted Monday night by a grand jury in Georgia in a long-running state probe of their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.
Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, was charged with several felonies, including a violation of the state’s racketeering law, conspiracy to commit forgery, false statements and writings, and filing false documents.
Also indicted were former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, attorney Sidney Powell and attorney John Eastman.
In the 97-page indictment, the grand jury handed up a total of 41 charges.
Democratic Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who has been investigating the case since early 2022, said in a late-night news conference that the case arose “from a criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in this state.”
DOCUMENT: Trump, allies indicted in Georgia
She gave the defendants a deadline of noon on Aug. 25, a week from Friday, to surrender.
Ms. Willis said she expects to submit a request to a judge, who will make the final decision, sometime this week that all the defendants be tried together “within the next six months.”
She declined to say whether she had been coordinating, on timing or anything else, with the other prosecutors who have brought criminal charges against Mr. Trump, though she said it didn’t matter to her whether she went “first or last.”
The others charged are lawyer Kenneth Chesebro; Robert Cheeley, a lawyer who allegedly promoted fraud claims; former Trump campaign official Mike Roman; David Shafer, a Georgia GOP chair and “fake” elector for Mr. Trump; Shawn Still, an alleged fake GOP elector; Stephen Lee, a pastor allegedly tied to intimidation of election workers; Harrison Floyd, a leader of Black Voices for Trump; Trevian Kutti, a publicist allegedly tied to intimidation of election workers; Cathy Latham, a purported fake GOP elector tied to an election system breach in Coffee County, Georgia; Scott Hall, also allegedly tied to the breach in Coffee County elections; Misty Hampton, Coffee County elections supervisor; and Ray Smith.
All the defendants are named in the racketeering, or RICO, count.
The racketeering charges paint the Trump campaign as a criminal enterprise like the Mafia or a gang, and list 161 illegal acts that purportedly comprised the conspiracy. It has a mandatory minimum sentence of five years imprisonment.
The Trump campaign blasted the new indictments as a “bogus” effort to interfere with his 2024 presidential campaign and called Ms. Willis a “rabid partisan.”
“Ripping a page from Crooked Joe Biden’s playbook, Willis has strategically stalled her investigation to try and maximally interfere with the 2024 presidential race and damage the dominant Trump campaign,” the campaign said in a statement.
The grand jury had heard from witnesses into the evening Monday in the election subversion investigation into Mr. Trump.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, called the indictments the Democrats’ latest “witch hunt” of Mr. Trump.
“He did nothing wrong!” Mr. Jordan posted on social media.
The grand jury had heard from witnesses into the evening Monday in the election subversion investigation into Mr. Trump.
Ms. Willis has been investigating the case since early 2022.
Mr. Trump has already been indicted in three different cases this year, including a prosecution by special counsel Jack Smith involving charges related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Washington. The former president, who holds a substantial lead over his 2024 GOP rivals, has said his polling has grown stronger with each new indictment.
“Every time I get indicted I like to check the polls,” Mr. Trump said at a campaign event last week. “One more indictment and I think this election is over!”
Earlier in the day, an apparent indictment of Mr. Trump was inadvertently posted on the Fulton County courthouse website before being taken down.
Those papers accused the former president of a dozen felony charges, including racketeering and conspiracy. A court official later said it was a “fictitious” posting.
For months, the grand jury in Fulton County has been gathering evidence about Mr. Trump and his associates’ actions following the 2020 election, including alleged efforts to pressure state officials to alter results, set up fake electors or possibly access voting machines in Coffee County.
Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said he had been scheduled to appear before an Atlanta-based grand jury on Tuesday but completed his testimony on Monday instead. It is a regular grand jury, meaning it can decide whether to reject or endorse charges presented by prosecutors.
Mr. Trump on Monday criticized Mr. Duncan.
“I am reading reports that failed former Lt. Governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan, will be testifying before the Fulton County Grand Jury,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He shouldn’t. I barely know him but he was, right from the beginning of this Witch Hunt, a nasty disaster for those looking into the Election Fraud that took place in Georgia.”
The ex-president blasted Mr. Duncan for refusing to hold a special legislative session to reexamine the 2020 results. And he repeated his unproven claims the election was stolen from him and that rivals tampered with the results.
“They are the slime that should be prosecuted,” he wrote in all caps. “I made a perfect phone call of protest.”
An independent journalist, George Chidi, said he had expected to appear before the grand jury on Tuesday but moved up his testimony to Monday.
“Change of plans. I’m going to court today. They’re moving faster than they thought,” he posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Two former Democratic state lawmakers, Bee Nguyen and Jen Jordan, were spotted at the Fulton County courthouse and confirmed to multiple outlets they testified before the grand jury.
“No individual is above the law, and I will continue to fully cooperate with any legal proceedings seeking the truth and protecting our democracy,” Ms. Nguyen said in a written statement.
Mr. Trump also faces federal charges from Mr. Smith over classified government documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his post-election actions.
Some online commentators viewed Mr. Trump’s posts on Truth Social as an attempt to dissuade witnesses from offering evidence against him. A federal judge in Washington is crafting an order that will bar Mr. Trump from talking about some aspects of a separate case that charges him with conspiring against the U.S. for trying to overturn the 2020 election results.
The Georgia indictment is notable because it involves non-federal charges, meaning Mr. Trump would not be able to pardon himself if he wins the White House in 2024. Security barricades had been set up around the county courthouse in Atlanta.
Mr. Trump also faces trial next year in New York state on charges he falsified business records to hide hush money paid in 2016 to two women and a hotel doorman.
Ms. Willis started investigating Mr. Trump in part because of a phone call he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he asked state officials to “find” the votes he needed to win the state.
Mr. Trump says he did nothing wrong and it was a “perfect call.”
Separately, a CNN report cited evidence of the alleged connection between an unauthorized breach of election systems in Coffee County, Georgia, and Mr. Trump’s associates.
The report, citing text messages, said Coffee County officials sent a written invitation to examine voting systems to Mr. Trump’s team.
The messages suggest Mr. Giuliani — a Trump attorney — was involved in the scheme, though an attorney for Mr. Giuliani told the news outlet that he had “nothing to do with this.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.