GEORGIA: A grand jury in the southern U.S. state of Georgia has indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 others in connection with efforts to overturn his narrow 2020 election loss in the pivotal political battleground state.
The 13 charges unsealed against Trump include racketeering, violating his oath of office, conspiracies to commit forgery and file false documents, and other offenses.
The indictment alleged that Trump and the other defendants “refused to accept that Trump had lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis alleged in the indictment that the 19 defendants and 30 unnamed co-conspirators “constituted a criminal organization” and took 161 overt acts to upend the election result.
Trump is the first U.S. president, in office or after his term ended, ever formally accused of criminal offenses in the country’s 247-year history.
But now, even as national polls show him with a commanding lead for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he has been indicted four times in the last four months and faces several trials in the coming months.
He derided the Georgia indictment, saying Tuesday on his Truth Social account that he would release an “irrefutable report” next Monday showing that the election outcome in Georgia was rigged against him and claiming that his evidence would lead to “complete EXONERATION” of himself and his 18 co-defendants.
Judges have dismissed dozens of Trump’s election fraud claim lawsuits, including in Georgia.
The racketeering charge in the new indictment means that Georgia prosecutors must prove that the former president broke two or more of the state’s laws as part of a scheme to overturn the election results.
Among those charged along with Trump were former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor and New York mayor; and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump considered naming attorney general in the waning days of his administration in early 2021.
Willis told reporters at a news conference late Monday that the defendants were part of a criminal enterprise in Fulton County and elsewhere to “accomplish the illegal goal of allowing Donald J. Trump to seize the presidential term of office” that began on January 20, 2021.
(VOA)
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