Former president Donald Trump has been indicted by a Georgia grand jury after an investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential-election results in the Peach State.
Trump is facing 13 felony charges, including conspiracy to commit forgery, filing false documents, Solicitation of Violation of Oath by Public Officer, and violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
The indictment came hours after a two-page docket was posted on the Fulton County court's website on Monday that detailed charges against Trump, including racketeering, conspiracy, and false statements. However, the docket was quickly removed from the site and appeared to have been published in error.
Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis’s investigation, which began in early 2021, centered on alleged efforts from Trump and his allies to pressure election officials and a plan to put forward fake electors. The investigation was launched shortly after Trump called Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger and pressured him to “find” the votes needed to flip the state in his favor. Trump said as recently as last week that it was a “perfect phone call.”
Nearly 20 people have been told they could face charges as part of the investigation, including several Trump aides and advisers, according to the New York Times.
Trump’s campaign put out a statement calling Willis a “rabid partisan” shortly after the grand jury approved the indictment.
"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. They could have brought this two and half years ago, yet they chose to do this for election interference reasons in the middle of President Trump's successful campaign," the statement said.
"These activities by Democrat leaders constitute a grave threat to American democracy and are direct attempts to deprive the American people of their rightful choice to cast their vote for President. Call it election interference or election manipulation—it is a dangerous effort by the ruling class to suppress the choice of the people. It is un-American and wrong," the campaign added.
On Sunday, CNN reported on text messages and other communications obtained by prosecutors in the Georgia probe that purportedly connect members of the former president's legal team with a January 2021 voting-systems breach.
"Just landed back in DC with the Mayor huge things starting to come together! Most immediately, we were just granted access — by written invitation! — to Coffee County's systems. Yay!" reads one message from January 1, 2021, according to CNN. The message was sent in a group chat of colleagues from Sullivan Strickler, a law firm used by Trump's team to review the voting systems in Coffee County, a rural Georgia county that Trump won by 70 percent.
"The mayor" appears to refer to Trump's then-lawyer, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.
That "written invitation" was reportedly authored by former Coffee County elections official Misty Hampton, who falsely told the Trump team in the days after the election that Dominion voting machines could "very easily" change votes from one candidate to another. A Trump campaign official asked Hampton in an email to "obtain as much information as possible" about the voting situation in the county.
Hampton and elections official Cathy Latham ultimately appeared to help the Trump team access the Coffee County voting system, according to messages obtained by CNN. Surveillance footage reportedly shows Latham allowing unauthorized visitors to access the voting systems.
The indictment is the former president's fourth in four months. He is already facing four felony counts as a result of special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, as well as another 42 felony counts stemming from Smith's separate investigation into the former president's alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Before that, Trump was indicted in Manhattan on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a hush-money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.
While Trump could potentially pardon himself if he were to be convicted in the federal cases and were also reelected president, he would have no such power to pardon himself in a state-level case. In Georgia, pardons can only be granted five years after the completion of a sentence, according to the New York Times. The report notes that getting a sentence commuted requires the approval of a state panel.
There sure is going to be a lot of karma to be dealt out later
ReplyDelete