Aviva Fried with AFP
modified to
12:19 p.m., August 15, 2023
A Georgia court indicted former US President Donald Trump and 18 others in Atlanta on Monday for their alleged wrongful attempts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election in the key state. This is the fourth criminal indictment in less than six months for Donald Trump, campaigning for the Republican primary to win back the White House in 2024. Fulton County Prosecutor Fani Willis has used a law in force in Georgia on organized gang delinquency, used in particular against gangs and providing for sentences of five to twenty years in prison.
Despite the incumbent’s defeat in Georgia in 2020, “Trump and the other defendants refused to acknowledge that he lost and knowingly and deliberately participated in a conspiracy to illegally change the election result in his favor. “, according to the indictment. A grand jury meeting in the capital of this state in the south-east of the country approved this indictment after a day of testimony by witnesses called by the prosecution.
This panel of citizens invested with investigative powers was set up by Fani Willis, who has been investigating this case since 2021, in order to determine whether there were enough elements to indict Donald Trump, in particular for acts of fraud and election interference.
No grace possible
The latter again attacked the prosecutor, in a press release from his campaign on Monday evening, calling her a “rabid partisan” serving the interests of Democratic President Joe Biden. “Willis has strategically slowed his investigation to interfere as much as possible with the 2024 presidential race and harm the dominant Trump campaign” in the polls, according to this text, without explicit confirmation of his indictment.
The investigation was triggered by a phone call in January 2021 from Donald Trump – the recording of which has been made public – in which he asked a senior local official to “find” the approximately 12,000 ballots in his name that he lacked to win this state. To prevent possible pressure or violence, security barriers had 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 August 1 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 movies, 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).