Charge four is from Georgia
Donald Trump charged with electoral conspiracy
8/15/2023 5:24 am
In the state of Georgia, former President Donald Trump faces another indictment. A grand jury in Atlanta has ruled that Trump should stand trial over his attempts to influence the outcome of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.
Former US President Donald Trump has now been charged in the state of Georgia with his attempts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. The 77-year-old Republican was charged on 13 counts Monday, according to the indictment released late tonight (local time) in Atlanta. The basis is, among other things, a law on the fight against organized crime.
Also charged were 18 other suspects, including Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and attorney Rudy Giuliani. Trump and the other defendants formed a “conspiracy to unlawfully alter the outcome of an election in Trump’s favour,” the indictment said. “The conspiracy had a common plan and purpose.” Never before in US history has an ex-president come to court for a crime. The Republican, who wants to run again in the 2024 presidential election, rejects all allegations and sees the prosecution against him as an attempt by his opponents to prevent him from re-entering the White House.
Hush money, secret documents, conspiracy
It is the fourth indictment against the ex-president. In the past few months, charges have been brought against the Republican in three other cases in New York, Miami and Washington. The New York case is related to hush money payments to a porn star. The Miami case revolves around the safekeeping of top secret government documents in Trump’s private home. In Washington, on the other hand, the 2020 election is also about attempted election fraud and the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. In the case in Washington, Trump is also accused of conspiracy against the United States.
At the beginning of August, Trump was accused by the federal judiciary of his attempts to overturn the election outcome after his defeat by Democrat Joe Biden and thus stay in the White House. The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, which includes much of Atlanta, is investigating the post-election actions of Trump and his allies in parallel with the federal judiciary, focusing on Georgia.
Trump’s order: Find 11,780 votes
In a famous phone call on January 2, 2021 – about two months after the election – the president who was voted out asked Georgia’s election officer Brad Raffensperger to “find” the 11,780 votes needed for a victory in the southern state. In addition, the confirmation of Biden’s election victory should be prevented by false electoral votes in favor of Trump. Trump supporters also broke into an election office after the election and obtained sensitive data.
Georgia had played an important role in the 2020 presidential election. The state in the south-east of the USA is a so-called swing state, in which Democrats and Republicans often have very close races. Biden’s narrow win in Georgia, along with victories in other swing states like Arizona and Pennsylvania, was crucial to the outcome of the entire election.
However, Trump did not acknowledge his defeat and raised allegations of massive election fraud – unsubstantiated allegations that were rejected by numerous judges and authorities and refuted by independent fact-checkers. The right-wing populist’s actions in the fight against the outcome of the election culminated in the attack by radical Trump supporters on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, when Biden’s election victory was to be finally certified.