At the beginning of the month, former US president and would-be dictator Donald Trump was finally charged in federal court for trying to overturn the 2020 federal election. But his efforts to overturn democracy happened all over the US, and now the state of Georgia is getting into the act, prosecuting him for racketeering over his fake electors:
Donald Trump and some of his closest confidantes have been indicted on state racketeering and conspiracy charges over efforts to reverse Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election in Georgia. This indictment makes the former US president a criminal defendant in a fourth case as he campaigns to recapture the presidency.Of course, Georgia has a Republican governor and a Republican legislature, so there's plenty of scope for Republican corruption of the judicial process. Still, every indictment is something to celebrate, a sign that the US may be turning away from the path of dictatorship and returning to being a normal democracy.The sprawling 41-count indictment, handed down by a state grand jury in Atlanta late on Monday night, charges Trump himself with 13 counts and accuses him of orchestrating a criminal enterprise.
In addition to Trump, prosecutors in the office of the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis charged 18 other defendants, including his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows as well as his 2020 election lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro.
The charges mark a moment of significant legal peril for Trump, since the charges come at the state level and he would not be able to undo any potential convictions through measures such as a self-pardon or appointing a sympathetic attorney general if he were re-elected president in 2024.
