Former United States president Donald Trump was indicted in Georgia on charges of racketeering and a string of election crimes after over a two-year probe into his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden in the US state of Georgia.
The case was filed over a Jan 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump urged Georgia’s top election official, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to reverse his narrow loss in the state, but the request was declined.
On January 6, 2021, four days after the phone call, Trump’s supporters attacked the US Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. This happened just two weeks before Trump was scheduled to leave office.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and called the indictment “rigged” and a “witch hunt”. On his Truth Social platform, he wrote: “Sounds rigged to me! Why didn’t they indict 2.5 years ago? Because they wanted to do it right in the middle of my political campaign.”
Why is Georgia’s indictment different?
Trump has already been charged four times this year, but the Georgia charges may be particularly dangerous for the former president.
This is the only trial that is likely to be carried on television, with the historic proceedings being streamed and transmitted into homes across the United States and around the world.
The main accusation levelled against Trump and the other 18 defendants is that they violated Georgia’s version of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) law, which is often used to pursue organised crime.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis who charged Trump and others said that she wants to hold the trial within the next six months.
Just a few weeks after it was made public that Trump had pushed Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss in the Peach State, Willis had begun the investigation.
Willis made it clear right on that she was looking into any violations of state statutes that prohibit election fraud and lying to authorities, as well as racketeering, conspiracy, and “any involvement in violence or threats” related to the administration of the 2020 election.
In the case, other defendants include Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, and lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman. The charge against the 18 other defendants is also what makes this case different from the federal case.
In a column in The New York Times, attorneys Norman Eisen and Amy Lee Copland said: “Willis ties them all together by levying one charge against Mr. Trump and each of the 18 other defendants under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, or RICO, accusing Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators of functioning as a criminal gang.”
The Georgia indictment is the “first to plumb the full depths, through a state-focused bathyscaph, of the conspiracy” to upend the 2020 election, they said. “That all of this is likely to play out on television only deepens the historic nature of the indictment.”
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US-based media outlets reported said that Trump could face up to 20 years in prison for a racketeering charge connected with his attempt to overturn Biden’s 2020 Georgia win.
Trump is facing 13 charges altogether in the Georgia case, including making false statements, forgery and soliciting a public offer to violate their oath.
Trump and his co-defendants are due to surrender to Georgia authorities by August 25. Warrants have been issued for their arrest, and Willis said she wants the case to go to trial within the next six months.
The former president has claimed that he will share an “irrefutable” report next week that will exonerate him in a new indictment by a Georgia grand jury.
Trump also faces federal charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith for allegedly conspiring to defraud the US with his attempts to upend the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. A judge is to set a date on August 28 for a trial in the nation’s capital, but television cameras are not allowed in federal courtrooms.
Trump has entered a not-guilty plea to the federal and New York charges, and he has blamed his Democratic political rivals for filing them in an effort to thwart his campaign to retake the White House.
Regarding a pardon, the indictments in New York and Georgia both include state charges rather than federal ones and if Trump were to win the election next year, he would not be able to pardon himself.
Unlike state convictions, only federal offences are eligible for pardons from US presidents.
In Georgia, a five-member Board of Pardons and Paroles grants pardons rather than the governor.
However, a person cannot get a pardon until at least five years have passed after the end of their prison term, and they must have “lived a law-abiding life” ever since their release.
(With inputs from agencies)
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