A Georgia grand jury on Monday indicted former President Donald J. Trump and his key allies for attempting to to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential win in the state.
It is the former president’s fourth criminal indictment this year.
In addition to Trump, the indictment brings charges against his personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, lawyer Sidney Powell and a dozen others.
The defendants “knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” prosecutors wrote in the 41-count criminal indictment. They have until Friday to turn themselves in voluntarily.
Read the full indictment here.
For months prosecutors in Georgia have investigated whether Trump broke the law by, among other acts, privately pressuring Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to state that he had found enough votes for Trump to carry Georgia. Raffensperger, a Republican, refused Trump’s request.
As expected, the defendants were charged under a racketeering statute, used to target individuals who conspire in a corrupt organization. The indictment describes a “criminal enterprise” that operated in Georgia and a number of other states to overturn the outcome of the election. Other alleged crimes including making false statements, impersonating a public officer, forgery and soliciting public law officers to violate their oaths.
“The defendant engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election results,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said at a press conference Monday evening.
When asked if the indictments were politically motivated, Willis said: “I make decision in this office based on the facts and the law.”
Before the indictment was released, Trump attorneys Drew Findling and Jennifer Little questioned the validity of the grand jury process.
“Fulton County District Attorney’s Office has once again shown that they have no respect for the integrity of the grand jury process,” attorneys Drew Findling and Jennifer Little said in a statement issued by the Trump campaign.
Meanwhile, the Trump Campaign called the indictments “bogus.”
“Ripping a page from Crooked Joe Biden’s playbook, Willis has strategically stalled her investigation to try and maximally interfere with the 2024 presidential race and damage the dominant Trump campaign,” the campaign said in a statement on Truth Social. “All of these corrupt Democrat attempts will fail.”
Among Trump’s other legal woes:
The former president pled not guilty in Federal Court in Washington, D.C., on August 3 to criminal charges alleging that Trump conspired to overturn his 2020 presidential defeat with false claims that the race was “stolen.”
The federal counts against Trump include conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
On June 13, Trump was arrested and released in Miami, Florida, after being charged with 37 counts related to the alleged mishandling of more than 100 classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate containing national security secrets. He pleaded not guilty to the Espionage Act charges, including conspiracy to obstruct justice and willful retention of defense records.
In March, a Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump for allegedly falsifying business records to cover up an alleged “hush money payment” to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The former president has pled not guilty to those charges.
On Aug. 7, a federal judge in New York upheld a $5 million jury verdict that found Trump guilty of sexually abusing and defaming Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who claimed Trump raped her in a New York department store dressing room in 1996.
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