Georgia prosecutor says she wants to hold Trump trial within six months
Donald Trump faces charges including conspiracy to commit forgery and impersonate a public official over his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat in his fourth indictment this year.
The Georgia prosecutor who has brought sweeping charges against former president Donald Trump and 18 other defendants says that she wants to hold their trial within the next six months.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said arrest warrants had been issued for Trump and the others charged over their efforts to overturn the 2020 election and they had until August 25 to “voluntarily surrender”.
“We do want to move this case along and so we will be asking for a proposed order that occurs a trial date within the next six months,” she told reporters.
Willis said it was her intention to try all 19 defendants named in the indictment together.
“It is now the duty of my office to prove these charges in the indictment beyond a reasonable doubt at trial,” Willis said.
Asked about allegations by Trump that the indictment was “politically motivated”, Willis said, “I make decisions in this office based on the facts and the law.
“The law is completely nonpartisan,” she said.
Trump indicted for racketeering over Georgia
Trump has been indicted on charges of racketeering and a string of election crimes after a sprawling two-year probe into his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden in the US state of Georgia, according to a court filing.
The case – relying on laws typically used to bring down mobsters – is the fourth targeting the 77-year-old Republican this year and could lead to a watershed moment, the first televised trial of a former president in US history.
The grand jury approved charges against Trump for a violation of Georgia’s RICO law – or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisation – which accuses the former president of being part of a broad conspiracy to attempt to overturn the election result.
The twice-impeached Trump was also charged on six conspiracy counts over alleged efforts to commit forgery, impersonate a public official and submit false statements and documents.
In an introduction to the indictment, prosecutors allege there was a conspiracy to change the election result in favour of Mr Trump.
“Defendant Donald John Trump lost the United States presidential election held on November 3, 2020,” the indictment reads. “One of the states he lost was Georgia. Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump. That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states,” it continues.
The charges are as follows:
Count 1: Violation of the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations) Act
Count 5: Solicitation of violation of oath by public officer
Count 9: Conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer
Count 11: Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree
Count 13: Conspiracy to commit false statements and writings
Count 15: Conspiracy to commit filing false documents
Count 17: Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree
Count 19: Conspiracy to commit false statements and writings
Count 27: Filing false documents
Count 28: Solicitation of violation of oath by public officer
Count 29: False statements and writings
Count 38: Solicitation of violation of oath by public officer
Count 39: False statements and writings
With Mr Trump already due to go on trial in New York, south Florida and Washington, the latest charges herald the unprecedented scenario of the 2024 presidential election being litigated as much from the courtroom as the ballot box.
The indictment names 19 defendants, including former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark. Other defendants are: Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trump’s former lawyer, John Eastman, another Trump lawyer, Harrison Floyd, leader of Black Voices for Trump and Sidney Powell, Trump’s campaign lawyer.
Mr Giuliani, who rose to power as a tough-on-crime prosecutor, was indicted on an array of charges, including racketeering and making false statements.
Earlier on Tuesday (AEST) the grand jury in Georgia handed down 10 indictments, but while
television footage showed a judge signing off on the findings, it was not immediately clear who was indicted. The documents were apparently being processed by a court clerk, at which point they would be made public.
President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020.
BIG FLAG: a Fulton County grand jury has returned 10 indictments. @CharlieGileNBC snapped this photo at the clerk’s office.
— Blayne Alexander (@ReporterBlayne) August 15, 2023
We are awaiting names and details. pic.twitter.com/IwGVxsck80
The Trump campaign slammed the unreleased idictment as “bogus,” arguing it amounted to “election interference or election manipulation”.
In a statement, the campaign reiterated Mr Trump’s personal attacks on the prosecutors examining the election inteference claims. It also argued that the indictment was an attempt to suppress Mr Trump’s First Amendment rights, the same argument he has used in other his other indictments.
Earlier, the Georgia district attorney who has investigated alleged election interference by former Mr Trump began presenting evidence to the grand jury here.
On Monday morning, the Fulton County courthouse was surrounded with orange barricades and the street in front of the building was closed off. Media trucks lined the street. Law-enforcement presence was heavy but the streets were quiet.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s timeline became clearer over the weekend when two witnesses in the investigation said they had been summoned to testify this week.
Reuters reported on Monday that the Fulton County Superior Court’s website briefly posted a document listing several criminal charges against Trump including racketeering, conspiracy and false statements, before taking the document down without explanation. The Wall St Journal couldn’t independently verify the document.
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) August 14, 2023
A spokesman for Willis said Monday that the Reuters report was inaccurate. The court’s clerk’s office called the court filing spotted by Reuters “fictitious,” without explaining how it ended up online.
“There have been no documents filed today regarding” the case, the Fulton County Superior Court clerk’s office said in the statement. “Documents that do not bear an official case number, filing date, and the name of The Clerk of Courts, in concert, are not considered official filings and should not be treated as such,” the statement added.
Lawyers for Trump said in a statement: “The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office has once again shown that they have no respect for the integrity of the grand jury process,” adding: “A proposed indictment should only be in the hands of the District Attorney’s Office.” Who is expected to testify this week?
One of the expected witnesses is Geoff Duncan, Georgia’s Republican former lieutenant governor, who spoke out against Trump’s false claims that the Nov. 3, 2020, election was marred by fraud. Over the weekend, he said he was asked to testify Tuesday. But a person familiar with the matter said Duncan’s testimony was moved up to Monday. Efforts to reach Duncan on Monday were unsuccessful.
“I look forward to answering their questions around the 2020 election,” Duncan said in a Saturday statement, referring to the grand jury. “Republicans should never let honesty be mistaken for weakness.”
Another witness summoned to testify is George Chidi, an independent journalist who stumbled upon a meeting of state GOP officials seeking to certify an alternate slate of Electoral College votes for Trump while the official procedure was committing the state’s electoral votes to Joe Biden.
Chidi said Saturday on X, the social-media company formerly known as Twitter, that he had been summoned to testify on Tuesday. He provided an update on Monday, saying he had been summoned to testify that afternoon – a day earlier than expected.
“Change of plans. I’m going to court today,” Chidi said. “They’re moving faster than they thought.” On Monday, the jurors also heard testimony from Bee Nguyen, a former Democratic state representative who attended hearings where then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani urged officials not to certify Georgia’s election results.
The grand jury could hear from other witnesses, as well as an investigator who summarises witness interviews and other testimony.
What is the Georgia investigation focused on?
Willis, an elected Democrat in Atlanta, has been investigating alleged election interference by Trump and his allies for more than 2 1/2 years. Trump has said he did nothing wrong in Georgia and that Willis is biased against him.
Trump lost Georgia by about 12,000 votes out of five million cast in 2020. Trump and supporters claimed fraud, but recounts and a forensic audit conducted by Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger found no evidence of widespread fraud. Court cases challenging the results failed.
Trump however pressured Raffensperger, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, the late Republican Georgia House Speaker David Ralston and others to overturn the results.
Willis has investigated Trump’s contacts with Georgia Republicans in the weeks after the election, including a phone call in which he asked Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.” Raffensperger, a former supporter of Trump who resisted the former president’s pressure campaign, provided testimony to Willis’s office.
Another focus of Willis’s investigation was the “alternate electors,” individuals who signed a certificate stating Trump had won Georgia in the 2020 election and declared themselves Georgia’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. In July 2022, Willis notified all 16 GOP alternate electors in Georgia that they were targets in her investigation. At least eight of them reached immunity deals that allow them to avoid prosecution if they co-operate and testify.
A third major line of inquiry for Willis has been an alleged breach of voting equipment in Coffee County, a rural Georgia county about 200 miles from Atlanta. Surveillance video showed Trump operatives in January 2021 accessing a secure area of the county election office.
Why is a new grand jury hearing this case?
After launching her investigation, Willis found many potential witnesses refused to testify unless compelled by a subpoena. She requested a special grand jury, which under Georgia law had the authority to issue subpoenas and issue a report on its findings, but didn’t have authority to issue criminal indictments. The special grand jury interviewed more than 75 witnesses, including key figures such as Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.
A portion of the grand jury’s report was released earlier this year and stated that witnesses interviewed may have committed perjury. Both Duncan and Chidi testified before the earlier special grand jury.
The full report, which hasn’t been made public, gave Willis authority to present a case before a standard grand jury, which has authority to issue indictments. She is doing so this week.
AFP, Dow Jones
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