Follow all updates and reactions on the indictment of former President Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of his 2020 presidential election loss in Georgia. The charges focus on alleged schemes by Trump and his allies to attempt illegally overturn his loss in the state. It’s the fourth criminal case brought against the former president as he seeks to reclaim the White House, and the second to allege that he tried to subvert the results of the vote, according to the Associated Press:
Reactions on Trump’s Georgia 2020 Election Indictment
Newslooks- (AP)
McCarthy, Jordan, Green and Gaetz line up behind Trump
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) flocked to former President Trump’s side in the wake of his latest indictment in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the state.
“Justice should be blind, but Biden has weaponized government against his leading political opponent to interfere in the 2024 election,” McCarthy wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Now a radical DA [district attorney] in Georgia is following Biden’s lead by attacking President Trump and using it to fundraise her political career.”
“Americans can see through this desperate sham,” he added.
In a post on X Monday night, Jordan called the indictment the “Democrats’ latest witch hunt” against Trump, adding the former president “did nothing wrong.”
The indictment against Trump and a group of 18 co-defendants marks the fourth criminal case brought against the former president since April. The case brought forward a wide range of charges, with a total of 41 counts against the 19 defendants, including racketeering and conspiracy to commit election fraud, among other charges. Trump faces 13 counts related to making false statements and impersonating a public officer.
The indictment comes after a years-long investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) into Trump’s efforts to intervene with the state’s 2020 presidential election results — while also arranging a group of 16 Georgia residents to serve as fake electors and claim he actually won the state, instead of Joe Biden.
Earlier this month, McCarthy also lined up behind Trump after the Justice Department’s indictment against the former president for his attempts to stay in power after the 2020 election, claiming the indictment is a way to “distract,” from the House GOP probes into President Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
“When you drain the swamp, the swamp fights back,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote on X. “President Trump did nothing wrong!”
Some staunch Trump defenders — including Reps. Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida — called for cutting off money for Smith’s investigation. After news of the indictment broke on Tuesday, Gaetz took to X to promote legislation he introduced on July 19 to defund the probe “following the politicization of and lack of transparency in” the investigation.
Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott attacked Justice Department
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is currently polling second behind Trump in the Republican primary, wrote on X that while he had not read the indictment, he hoped to enact changes that would reduce partisanship in the Department of Justice. What questions do you have about the four criminal cases Trump is facing?
“One of the reasons our country is in decline is the politicization of the rule of law,” DeSantis wrote. “No more excuses — I will end the weaponization of the federal government.”
Fellow primary candidate Tim Scott struck a similar tone, telling the Washington Post that he was “concerned about the weaponization of Biden’s DOJ and its immense power used against political opponents.” Scott also claimed that Trump and Hunter Biden were being served by “different tracks of justice.”
Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries’ joint statement
In a joint statement issued late Monday, the top two Democrats in Congress — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — said the fourth case against former President Donald Trump, “just like the three which came before it, portrays a repeated pattern of criminal activity by the former president.”
Schumer and Jeffries went on to urge “Trump, his supporters, and his critics to allow the legal process to proceed without outside interference.”
HILLARY CLINTON: ‘JUSTICE IS BEING PURSUED’ IN GEORGIA CASE
Appearing on MSNBC on Monday night, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — who lost the 2016 presidential election to Trump — called it “a terrible moment for our country, to have a former president accused of these terribly important crimes.”
”The only satisfaction may be that the system is working. Justice is being pursued,” Clinton added.
TRUMP LAWYERS DECRY ‘ONE-SIDED GRAND JURY PRESENTATION’
Former President Donald Trump’s legal team said the Georgia indictment resulted from a “one-sided grand jury presentation” that “relied on witnesses who harbor their own personal and political interests — some of whom ran campaigns touting their efforts against the accused and/or profited from book deals and employment opportunities as a result.”
Attorneys Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg said they “look forward to a detailed review of this indictment which is undoubtedly just as flawed and unconstitutional as this entire process has been.”
The trio of attorneys also referenced a document that appeared on the Fulton County Clerk’s Office website earlier Monday, as grand jury testimony was still ongoing, calling it a “major fumble” that they said caused Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis “to force through and rush this 98-page indictment.”
TRUMP CALLS GEORGIA CASE ‘ELECTION INTERFERENCE’
Former President Donald Trump and his allies were quick to critique the Georgia case against him.
In an email soliciting fundraising for his campaign, sent out shortly after the indictment was made public Monday night, Trump called the Georgia case “the FOURTH ACT of Election Interference on behalf of the Democrats in an attempt to keep the White House under Crooked Joe’s control and JAIL his single greatest opponent of the 2024 election.”
Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for a Trump-aligned super PAC, said Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was joining other prosecutors pursuing cases against Trump with “their only goal being to arrest Donald Trump and prevent him from being on the ballot against Joe Biden.”
The super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., also sent out an email blasting Willis — who is seeking reelection to her post next year and recently launched a new website — for “using the Trump indictment to fundraise and campaign.”
Those statements mirrored comments issued ahead of the indictment by Trump’s campaign, which also argued Willis “strategically stalled her investigation to try and maximally interfere with the 2024 presidential race and damage the dominant Trump campaign.”
Officials with Trump’s campaign also called the timing of “this latest coordinated strike by a biased prosecutor in an overwhelmingly Democrat jurisdiction not only betrays the trust of the American people, but also exposes true motivation driving their fabricated accusations.”
TRUMP AND OTHERS CHARGED GIVEN UNTIL AUG. 25 TO SURRENDER
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said former President Donald Trump and 18 others charged alongside him have nearly two weeks to surrender.
“I am giving the defendants the opportunity to voluntarily surrender no later than noon on Friday, the 25th day of August, 2023,” Willis said in a news conference shortly before midnight Monday.
Willis said she plans to try all 19 defendants together. She said she will ask for a trial to start within six months but added that scheduling decisions will be made by a judge.
She said the defendants are charged with conspiring to allow Trump “to seize the presidential term of office beginning on Jan. 20, 2021.”
SEVERAL CO-DEFENDANTS CHARGED ON COFFEE COUNTY ACTIONS
Several of the alleged conspirators, including attorney Sidney Powell, were charged for alleged crimes related to their actions in Coffee County, a south Georgia jurisdiction where prosecutors accuse Trump allies of commandeering voting information that was the property of Dominion Voting Systems.
Prosecutors said that Powell was among those who aided that strain of the broader conspiracy through her contract with and payments to a Georgia firm, SullivanStrickler LLC, that carried out the alleged acts as part of the Trump team’s efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in the state.
Others accused of the Coffee County acts include former elections supervisor Misty Hampton, former Coffee County GOP Chair Cathy Latham and Scott Hall, a bail bondsman.
They are charged related to the alleged Coffee County acts with conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to defraud the state and conspiracy to commit computer theft, among other charges.
18 PEOPLE INDICTED ALONG WITH TRUMP IN GEORGIA
Eighteen people were indicted alongside former President Donald Trump, including some of his closest advisers and lawyers, as well as Georgia-based attorneys and political operatives.
They include attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro and Jeffrey Clark, as well as Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
Ray Smith and Robert Cheeley, lawyers working for Trump in Georgia, also were indicted for allegedly lying — Smith to a Georgia Senate committee, and Cheeley to the Georgia Grand Jury.
Three of the 16 people who falsely claimed to be Georgia’s electoral college voters were indicted: David Shafer, then the state GOP chairman; Shawn Still, who was GOP finance chairman; and Cathleen Alston Latham.
Trump campaign official Michael Roman, who was allegedly involved in the fake electors scheme, also was indicted.
Others who were charged include Stephen Lee, William Floyd, Trevian Kutti, Scott Hall and Misty Hampton.
RACKETEERING AMONG GEORGIA CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST TRUMP
In total, former President Donald Trump faces a total of 13 felony charges in the Georgia case, according to filings made available late Monday on the Fulton County Clerk’s Office website.
The first among them is a violation of Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, law, which is used to charge Trump and his associates for allegedly participating in a wide-ranging conspiracy to overturn the state’s 2020 election result.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had been widely expected to use the law to charge Trump.
There are other charges related to allegedly trying to get a public official to violate an oath, conspiracy to impersonate a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery, and conspiracy to commit false statements and file false documents.
TRUMP INDICTED FOR EFFORTS TO OVERTURN 2020 ELECTION LOSS IN GEORGIA
Donald Trump has been indicted by a grand jury in Fulton County for meddling in the results of the 2020 election, which he lost in the state.
A grand jury voted Monday evening to bring a total of 13 felony charges against the former president, including violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, law, as well as violating his oath of office.
A slate of others were indicted along with Trump, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — one of Trump’s attorneys — as well as former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
The process played out live on national television, as cameras inside the courthouse staked out the clerk’s office, where the indictment paperwork was signed and walked down to the courtroom, where it was presented to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney.
The criminal case comes as Trump leads the field of Republicans seeking their party’s 2024 presidential nomination. It’s his fourth indictment this year, following charges in two federal cases, as well as a hush-money case in New York.
Trump famously called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, and suggested the state’s top elections official could help “find” the votes Trump needed to beat Biden. It was the release of a recording of that phone call that prompted Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to open her investigation about a month later.
Trump has repeatedly accused Willis’ team of haranguing him over what he has described as a “perfect phone call.” In the day leading up to the indictment, Trump posted to his Truth Social site that Willis “is using a potential Indictment of me, and other innocent people, as a campaign and fundraising CON JOB,” adding, , all based on a PERFECT PHONE CALL, AS PRESIDENT, CHALLENGING ELECTION FRAUD — MY DUTY & RIGHT!
___WHAT TO KNOW
— Trump’s latest indictment may be the most sweeping yet
— Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has overseen the sprawling Georgia case
— A law associated with mobsters and organized crime is central to the Georgia charges
— A closer look a the 18 other people charged alongside Trump in Georgia
— Trump was charged earlier this month by the Justice Department for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election
— A look at all of the investigations currently pending against Trump
— Trump also was indicted in June on charges that he illegally hoarded classified documents
