Donald Trump has been indicted on racketeering charges and election crimes in Georgia, marking the fourth legal case against him this year, the first televised trial of a former president in US history.
Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday on racketeering charges 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.
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.
Prosecutors in Atlanta charged Trump with 13 felony counts, compounding the legal threats he is facing in multiple jurisdictions as a firestorm of investigations imperils his bid for a second White House term.
Eighteen co-defendants were indicted in the probe, including Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who pressured local legislators over the result after the election, and Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
With 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.
Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis said Trump and his co-defendants had until noon on August 25 to “voluntarily surrender” to authorities, adding that she would like to go to trial within six months.m.
The twice-impeached Trump was charged with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, as well as six conspiracy counts over alleged efforts to commit forgery, impersonate a public official and submit false statements and documents.
He is also accused of lying in statements and filing fake documents, as well as soliciting public officials to break their oaths.
Under federal law, anyone who can be connected to a criminal “enterprise” through which offenses were committed can be convicted under RICO. The broader Georgia law doesn’t even require the existence of the enterprise.
Miroslava Salazar, with AFP
