Trump is charged with 13 felonies in Georgia, suspected of overturning the presidential election results
Former Republican President Donald Trump was charged with 13 serious crimes in southern Georgia on the 14th, including extortion and other related organized crime charges, for allegedly overturning the 2020 presidential election results.
This is the fourth time Trump has been criminally charged this year, and also the second time he has been charged with suspicion of interfering in the 2020 election since stepping down. 18 individuals, including close friends Rudy Giuliani, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and another lawyer John Eastman, who served as his personal lawyer, also became defendants.
Organized crime
In the 2020 presidential election, Trump lost to Democratic presidential candidate Joseph Biden in Georgia by less than 12000 votes. On January 2, 2021, Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raphenspurg, stating that he wanted to "find" enough votes to overturn his defeat in Georgia. It was this phone call that opened up Fanny Willis, a regional prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia, an investigation into Trump's popularity among his allies for over two years.
According to the Associated Press, a grand jury in Georgia agreed on the evening of the 14th to prosecute Trump on 13 counts of serious crimes, accusing the former president of violating the Anti ransomment and Bribery Organization Act and breaking public oaths.
According to Agence France Presse, Trump is also under control for conspiring to impersonate public officials and submitting false statements and documents.
The indictment released on that day consisted of 98 pages, and 19 defendants including Trump were charged with a total of 41 charges. Reuters said that all defendants are suspected of the crime of extortion, which is commonly used to charge organized criminals and can be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.
According to CNN, there are approximately 30 people who are accomplices in this case but have not been charged.
The indictment states that the defendants in this case, including Trump, refused to accept Trump's defeat and knowingly and intentionally conspired to illegally change the election results in favor of Trump.
The grand jury vote on the evening of the 14th was broadcast live on national television, and the indictment documents were signed and submitted to Judge Robert McBurney of the Fulton County High Court in Georgia.
The regional prosecutor Willis, who led the investigation, held a press conference near midnight on the 14th, announcing his intention to have 19 defendants on trial together, requiring all defendants to surrender before noon on the 25th of this month, and proposing a date for the trial of this case to the judge within 6 months.
Trial or live broadcast
Willis previously formed a special grand jury, which took 7 months to interrogate 75 witnesses and released an investigation report earlier this year. The head of the grand jury, Emily Coles, strongly hinted to New York Times reporters in February that they were inclined to bring criminal charges against multiple individuals, including Trump. Willis himself has also repeatedly warned that he will bring criminal charges against Trump.
According to the indictment, in addition to calling Secretary of State Laffensburg to overturn Georgia's defeat, the defendant is also suspected of providing false testimony to members of Congress claiming that the election was fraudulent; Pressure local state election officials to violate their public oath and change election results; Destroying the electoral system in a county in Georgia; Harassment of election vote counters; Conspiracy to falsely report the list of voters.
Reuters reported that the indictment shows that the investigation in this case has crossed states, accusing Giuliani and Meadows of spreading conspiracy theories to officials in Arizona and Pennsylvania, seeking to tamper with the election results in these states.
Earlier on the 14th, the website of the Fulton County High Court briefly appeared as a suspected indictment document, but it was quickly removed. According to the Associated Press, the indictment had not yet been voted on by a grand jury, and its publication on the website may have been a "document error". But Trump's side, who has always claimed that this case is "political persecution," seized the matter and claimed that the judicial process was manipulated. The Trump team of lawyers stated that this was not a "simple administrative error", but "a symbol of widespread and prominent unconstitutional behavior that runs through this case.".
According to Agence France Presse, the Georgia court is relatively open and it is expected that the case will be broadcasted on television nationwide from the pre-trial stage, which means Trump may become the first former president in US history to be tried and broadcasted. Even if Trump wins next year's presidential election, he will not be able to enjoy the powers granted to him by the federal system in Georgia, and therefore cannot self pardon or demand that the prosecution withdraw the lawsuit.