UPDATE 8/14/2023 11:15 p.m.
ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump and several allies were indicted in Georgia on Monday, accused of scheming to illegally overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. It’s the fourth criminal case to be brought against the former president and the second to allege that he tried to subvert the results of the vote.
The Fulton County grand jury indictment of Trump follows a two-year investigation ignited by a January 2021 phone call in which the then-president suggested that Georgia’s Republican secretary of state could help him “find 11,780 votes” needed to reverse his narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Other defendants included former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and a Trump administration Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, who advanced his efforts to undo his election loss in Georgia.
Trump was previously indicted in early August by a federal grand jury for conspiring to undermine the 2020 vote and prevent the peaceful transfer of power through a series of lies and unlawful actions taken after the general election and leading up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He pleaded not guilty in that case.
As indictments mount, Trump — the leading Republican candidate for president in 2024 — often invokes his distinction as the only former president to face criminal charges. He is campaigning and fundraising around these themes, portraying himself as the victim of Democratic prosecutors out to get him.
8/14/2023 9:40 p.m.
ATLANTA (AP) — A grand jury in Georgia that has been investigating former President Donald Trump over his efforts to undo the 2020 election results in that state returned at least one indictment Monday, though it was not immediately clear against whom.
Documents were presented around 9 p.m. by the county courts clerk to the Fulton County judge who for months has been presiding over the investigation.
The grand jury heard from witnesses into the evening Monday in the election subversion investigation into Donald Trump, a long day of testimony punctuated by the mysterious and brief appearance on a county website of a list of criminal charges against the former president that prosecutors later disavowed.
Prosecutors in Fulton County presented evidence to the grand jury as they pushed toward a likely indictment, summoning multiple former state officials including the ex-lieutenant governor as witnesses.
But the process hit an unexpected snag in the middle of the day, when Reuters reported on a document listing criminal charges to be brought against Trump, including state racketeering counts, conspiracy to commit false statements and solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.
Reuters, which later published a copy of the document, said the filing was taken down quickly. A spokesperson for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said the report of charges being filed was “inaccurate,” but declined to comment further on a kerfuffle that the Trump legal team rapidly jumped on to attack the integrity of the investigation.
The office of the Fulton County courts clerk later released a statement that seemed to only raise more questions, calling the posted document “fictitious,” but failing to explain how it got on the court’s website. The clerk’s office said documents without official case numbers “are not considered official filings and should not be treated as such.” But the document that appeared online did have a case number on it.
Asked about the “fictitious” document Monday evening, the courts clerk, Che Alexander, said: “I mean, I don’t know what else to say, like, grace … I don’t know, I haven’t seen an indictment, right, so I don’t have anything.” On the question of whether the website had been hacked, she said, “I can’t speak to that.”
Trump and his allies, who have characterized the investigation as politically motivated, immediately seized on the apparent error to claim that the process was rigged. Trump’s campaign aimed to fundraise off it, sending out an email with the since-deleted document embedded.
“The Grand Jury testimony has not even FINISHED – but it’s clear the District Attorney has already decided how this case will end,” Trump wrote in the email, which included links to give money to his campaign. “This is an absolute DISGRACE.”
Trump’s legal team said it was not a “simple administrative mistake.” Rather it was “emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception,” said lawyers Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg.
It was unclear why the list was posted while grand jurors were still hearing from witnesses in the sprawling investigation into actions taken by Trump and others in their efforts to overturn his narrow loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden. It was also unclear whether grand jurors were aware that the filing was posted online. They still would need to vote on charges, so the counts listed in the posting may or may not ultimately be brought against Trump.
