Donald Trump indicted: Georgia grand jury charges ex-president, 18 others in sweeping RICO case
Ashley Oliver
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A grand jury in Georgia indicted Donald Trump on Monday on racketeering charges related to the 2020 election, marking the fifth indictment across four criminal cases this year against the former president and current 2024 GOP front-runner.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis brought the RICO charges against Trump and 18 others, according to the 98-page indictment.
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The 18 others charged were:
Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor and attorney John Eastman, attorney Mark Meadows, former Trump chief of staff Ken Chesebro, attorney Jeffrey Clark, former Justice Department official Jenna Ellis, attorney Ray Smith III, attorney Robert Cheeley, attorney Mike Roman, Trump campaign official David Shafer, former Georgia GOP chairman Sidney Powell, attorney Misty Hayes, Coffee County elections supervisor Shawn Still, illegitimate elector Stephen Lee, pastor Harrison Floyd, former executive director of Black Voices for Trump Trevian Kutti, Kanye West publicist Cathleen Latham, illegitimate elector Scott Hall
Willis began investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election in January 2021, and she convened a grand jury in May 2022, according to portions of the grand jury’s final report released this year.
The report, made public in February, stated the grand jury had “received evidence from or involving” 75 witnesses, including election workers, technical experts, employees of the state of Georgia, and those who claimed election fraud had occurred in the 2020 election.
The report also noted the grand jury believed “one or more witnesses” had committed perjury and recommended the district attorney’s office also consider indictments for that.
Following the report’s release, grand jury forewoman Emily Kohrs went on a controversial media tour, previewing to several outlets that Willis was expected to bring charges against a long list of people, though she did not name anyone specifically. Her comments forced the judge overseeing the grand jury to clarify that Georgia jurors could speak about their final report but not deliberations.
On Monday, another controversy surfaced in the case when Reuters published a document that showed numerous felonies leveled against Trump, reporting that the document had been posted on Fulton County’s website and then quickly removed.
Fulton County called the document “fictitious” in a statement and said the office would notify media of any legitimate filings in real-time.
Attorneys for Trump released a statement shortly after Fulton County disassociated with the document, suggesting it indicated a lack of due process in the case.
“A proposed indictment should only be in the hands of the District Attorney’s Office, yet it somehow made its way to the clerk’s office and was assigned a case number and a judge before the grand jury even deliberated,” attorneys Drew Findling and Jennifer Little said. “This is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception.”
The prosecution against Trump in Georgia is the fifth indictment across four grand jury cases against the former president this year.
Special counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump in two federal cases, one in Florida over allegations he illegally held classified documents after he left office and one in Washington, D.C., over allegations he conspired to overturn the 2020 election.
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Smith later filed a superseding indictment in Florida against Trump, tacking on additional felonies related to classified documents.
In the third case, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought charges against Trump in New York concerning a 2016 hush money scheme involving porn star Stormy Daniels.