Former US President Donald Trump was indicted Monday, August 14, in Atlanta (Georgia) by a grand jury for trying to reverse the result of the 2020 presidential election, in particular by putting pressure on election officials.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis appealed to a Georgia law on organized crime, used in particular against gangs and providing for sentences of five to 20 years in prison. Despite the defeat of the incumbent president in this key state in the southeastern United States in 2020, “Trump and the other defendants refused to admit that he lost and knowingly and deliberately participated in a conspiracy to illegally change the outcome of the election in his favor”according to the indictment.
A grand jury meeting in the state capital approved the indictment after a day of testimony from witnesses called by the prosecution. This panel of citizens with investigative powers was set up by Ms.me Willis, who has been investigating this case since 2021, to determine if there was enough evidence to charge Donald Trump, in particular for fraud and electoral interference.
This is the fourth criminal indictment in less than six months for the former president, campaigning for the Republican primary to win back the White House in 2024.
A phone call at the heart of the investigation
Among the other 18 defendants are his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and a Trump administration Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark.
Donald Trump again attacked the prosecutor, in a statement from his campaign on Monday evening, calling her “rabid partisan” serving the interests of Democratic President Joe Biden. “Willis has strategically slowed down his investigation to interfere as much as possible with the 2024 presidential race and harm the mainstream Trump campaign” in the polls, according to this text, without explicit confirmation of his indictment.
He had already previously accused the prosecutor of “only wanting to ‘be Trump'” and had reiterated his unsubstantiated claims that he was the one defrauded in Georgia in 2020 for the benefit of his opponent, Joe Biden.
The billionaire also attacked Monday, on his Truth Social platform, the former Republican vice-governor of Georgia, who filed at the end of the day, saying that“He better not testify before the Fulton grand jury”.
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The investigation was prompted by a January 2021 phone call from Donald Trump – the recording of which has been made public – in which he asked a senior local official, Brad Raffensperger, to ” find “ the approximately 12,000 ballots in his name that he lacked to win the sixteen electors of this state.
TV debates
To prevent possible pressure or violence, security barriers have been installed in front of the court in Atlanta. Unlike federal trials, court proceedings in Georgia are televised, but the real estate mogul, who owes much of his fame to hosting a reality TV show, should be allowed to represent there.
Even if he wins in 2024, if he is convicted, he will not be able to pardon himself or have the charges dropped by the prosecutor’s office, since this is a court-level case. state of Georgia, over which the federal state has no authority.
These proceedings relate to part of the facts covered by the indictment on 1er August of Donald Trump in federal court in Washington for his alleged illegal maneuvers during the 2020 election in seven crucial states, including Georgia. The trial date has not yet been set.
The former president, who crushes his opponents in the polls for the Republican primary, must also be tried in March and May 2024. He will have to answer for the purchase of the silence of an actress of X films, before the justice of the State of New York, then of his alleged negligence in the management of confidential documents, before federal justice in Florida (southeast).