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Former President Donald Trump was indicted for an unprecedented fourth time on Monday for trying to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, adding a new complication to his mounting list of legal troubles.
If he is found guilty, it could lead to a significant fine, and even prison time.
Trump was charged with 13 counts, including racketeering, under Georgia law for scheming to steal the election from President Joe Biden, who won the state by less than 12,000 votes. Eighteen co-conspirators were charged as well.
If convicted, according Vox, Trump could face at least five years in prison and fines up to $250,000 or three times the amount of any pecuniary value he gained from the scheme to interfere in the election results. He is now the first former president to be indicted in Georgia — and remains the first former president to be indicted at all.
“The indictment alleges that rather than abide by Georgia’s legal process for election challenges, the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s election result,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said late on Monday.
He noted that each of those named in the indictment is innocent until proven guilty. Willis also said arrest warrants had been issued for each of the defendants, though they would be allowed “to voluntarily surrender no later than noon” on August 25.
Trump recently faced new charges related to his involvement in the January 6, 2021, insurrection and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election following a separate probe led by Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith, who is also leading Trump’s prosecution in another case for retaining classified documents after he left office.
That’s in addition to Trump’s indictment in New York over hush money payments made to the porn actor Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign and a federal indictment for mishandling sensitive classified documents after he left office. In total, Trump has now been indicted in four separate cases.
Much like the January 6 indictment, the latest one has overt consequences for US democracy and the upcoming 2024 election.
If Trump faces no legal repercussions for his interference in the 2020 election, in both the Georgia case and the latest federal case, the question is whether he, or his allies, will try to overturn the results a second time if he loses.
The charges are the result of a more than two-year investigation by the Fulton County district attorney’s office, and come after a Georgia special grand jury report on Trump’s interference in the 2020 election that recommended prosecutors seek charges based on interviews with 75 witnesses.
They are as follows:
Violation of Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act
Solicitation of violation of oath by public officer (three counts)
Conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer
Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree (two counts)
Conspiracy to commit false statements and writings (two counts)
Conspiracy to commit filing false documents
Filing false documents
False statements and writings (two counts)
To convict Trump, Georgia prosecutors would have to prove the existence of a racketeering “enterprise” and a pattern of racketeering based on at least two “qualifying” crimes. Racketeering is a form of organized criminal activity that involves operating illegal schemes (such as extortion or trying to overturn an election), often in a systematic and coordinated manner, by using intimidation, coercion, and manipulation. It’s a serious charge of which members of groups ranging from the Mafia to FIFA have been convicted.
Under Georgia law, a racketeering enterprise is the vehicle through which racketeering happens. It’s defined as a person, business, legal entity, group, or association, and can be either legitimate or illegal.
The indictment says the enterprise consisted of Trump, his 18 named co-conspirators, 30 unnamed (and unindicted) co-conspirators, and “others known and unknown to the Grand Jury.” Many of the named co-conspirators were prominent members of Trump’s legal team in the days following the 2020 election, including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.