For Donald Trump, the weeks follow each other and look alike. For the fourth time in less than six months, the former American president was charged on Monday August 14. This time by the justice of Georgia, which accuses the billionaire and 18 other people of having attempted to illicitly obtain the reversal of the result of the 2020 election in this key state.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged the 19 defendants under a Georgia law on organized crime, used in particular against gangs and providing for sentences of five to 20 years in prison. She announced at a press conference in Atlanta, the capital of this state in the south-east of the country, to give them until August 25 “to surrender voluntarily” to justice in Georgia.
The prosecutor said she wanted to try the defendants, including Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, in the same trial “within six months”, but recalled that the date in would be set by the judge.
41 different counts
“The indictment alleges that instead of complying with Georgia’s legal process for election disputes, the defendants engaged in an organized criminal enterprise to reverse Georgia’s election result,” she pointed out. It contains a total of 41 different counts, including “false declarations and false documents, usurpation of public office, forgery and use of forgery”, pressure on witnesses, a series of computer crimes or even perjury.
The investigation was sparked 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 to “find” the approximately 12,000 ballots in his name that he lacked to win this state.
A grand jury meeting in Atlanta 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 Fani Willis, who has been investigating this case for two years.
No grace possible
Donald Trump again attacked the prosecutor, in a statement from his campaign on Monday evening, calling her a “rabid partisan” serving the interests of Democratic President Joe Biden, whom he could find on his road in 2024 for a revenge of the 2020 election. “Willis strategically slowed down 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. “The witch hunt continues!”, he also reacted on Tuesday in a message posted on his Truth Social platform. “It looks fake to me. Why didn’t they charge two and a half years ago? Because they wanted to do it in the middle of my political campaign,” the former president stormed.
The prosecutor replied Monday evening that she made her decisions based on “the facts and the law”. “The law is completely impartial,” she assured. 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 do so. represent.
Even in the event of a presidential victory in 2024, if he is convicted, Trump will not be able to pardon himself or obtain the dismissal of the charges by the prosecutor’s office, since this is a case in the level of the 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 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.