New Delhi: Former US president Donald Trump, along with 18 other defendants, is expected to surrender at Fulton County jail in Georgia next week on charges of racketeering and trying to overturn the state results of the 2020 presidential election. While the deadline for their surrender is 25 August, the arraignment is expected to be in September. This is Trump’s fourth indictment in the past four months.
However, the indictment against Trump in Georgia brought by Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis on 14 August carries the most extensive accusations levelled against the former president yet. Trump and 18 others, including his lawyers, advisers and supporters have been charged for violation of the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations) Act and 40 other crimes.
Trump has been facing a wave of legal investigations on a series of charges including forgery, soliciting public officers, hoarding classified documents in his private residence in Mar-a-Lago and attempting to overturn the 2020 election. On the whole, he faces 91 criminal counts in four separate cases filed in Georgia, Florida, Washington and New York.
ThePrint explains the four cases against Trump and how this could impact his 2024 election campaign bid.
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Georgia election subversion case
Trump’s fourth indictment charges him with election tampering and attempting to overturn his 2020 loss in Georgia, which is a swing state.
This case revolves around Willis’s 2021 probe of a recorded call between Trump and Georgia’s Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger wherein he demanded that the latter “find” enough votes during a recount to declare Trump as the winner in the state.
On Monday, a grand jury indicted the former president along with 18 others, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, and Jeffrey Clark on 41 counts. The charges include giving false statements and submissions to state and federal officials, using fake electors, attempts to intimidate and harass election worker Ruby Freeman, and violating RICO, among others.
Of these 41 charges, 13 counts are against Trump. While the former president has denied any wrongdoing, his lawyer and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani faces the same number of charges — the highest among the 18 defendants, apart from Trump.
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO Act, adopted as state law in Georgia in 1980, criminalises participation in, acquiring or maintaining control of an “enterprise” through a “pattern of racketeering activity” or to conspire to do so. This charge is applicable even if the alleged conspiracy is unsuccessful, and carries steep penalties.
“Racketeering activity” refers to committing, attempting to commit – or to solicit, coerce or intimidate someone else to commit – one of more than three dozen state crimes listed in the law. While the federal RICO law mandates a series of underlying criminal acts, Georgia’s state RICO law has no such requirement.
According to the roughly 100-page indictment accessed by ThePrint, the prosecutors allege that the defendants conspired to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
“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 favour of Trump,” reads the indictment.
A crucial aspect in the backdrop of these indictments has been the upcoming 2024 presidential election, with Trump still the frontrunner in the race for the Republican nominee. If re-elected in 2024, Trump will have the power to pardon himself or order the Department of Justice to dismiss charges against him and other defendants, but only in three out of four indictments. In the case in Georgia, his powers will prove ineffective.
What makes the Georgia case unique from Trump’s other indictments is that unlike the election subversion charges he faces in Washington DC, which are federal charges, in Fulton County, Trump faces state charges. Not only will Trump not be able to pardon himself, he will also not be able to dismiss the local attorneys prosecuting him.
This is because Presidents can only issue pardons for federal crimes while the Georgia indictment consists of state crimes. Moreover, he cannot seek help from Georgia’s Republican state governor to dismiss the charges as unlike other states, the governor there cannot issue pardons. This power is vested only in the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, which is a five-member panel authorised by the state constitution.
As ThePrint previously reported, despite being charged, Trump can continue his election campaign for the 2024 election since the US Constitution does not restrict those charged, convicted of a crime, or even serving jail time, from running or winning the presidency.
If he were to win the election next year alongside being convicted on state charges and sent to jail, he would only be removed by impeachment via the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution, which allows for removal of a president who is unable to perform his duties.
January 6 Capital riots
Roughly two weeks before the Georgia indictment, on 1 August, Trump was indicted under four charges for his bid to remain in power after losing the 2020 election and for his role in the January 6 Capitol riots. One of the most crucial cases in the Justice Department’s history, it is being led by Jack Smith, the special counsel who took over the Justice Department’s inquiries into Trump last year and involves much more specific charges.
In his second federal indictment, the charges are linked to Trump’s attempts to remain in power and include defrauding the United States, obstructing an official government proceeding and depriving people of civil rights provided by federal law or the Constitution. The former president is also being charged with trying to obstruct an official proceeding — the certification of the election results by the US Congress.
In an arraignment on 3 August, Trump stood to face criminal charges for the third time in the past four months and pleaded not guilty in Washington DC.
An arraignment is a legal process wherein a defendant is brought to court to be formally informed of charges brought against them. Here, the defendant is given the chance to plead guilty or not guilty in front of the judge.
The indictment states that Trump and six unnamed co-conspirators attempted to ‘overturn the legitimate results’ of the 2020 presidential election by ‘using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function’. It also notes that Trump and his associates attempted to tamper votes in favour of Trump and to recruit fake electors.
Looking at the January 6 riots, the indictments also accused Trump of exploiting the disturbance to further legitimise ‘false claims of election fraud and convince members of Congress to further delay the certification’.
Trump’s lawyers are seeking to push the trial date to April 2026, more than a year after the 2024 election, while prosecutors want the trial to begin January next year.
Classified documents at Mar-a-Lago
Roughly a year since the FBI recovered numerous classified documents from Trump’s private residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, the former President was indicted for the first time under federal charges. Charging him with 38 criminal counts including risking national security and deleting security footage, among others, the case involves Trump, his former valet Walt Nauta and property manager of Mar-a-Lago, Carlos De Oliveira.
While he was initially indicted in June 2023, three new charges were added on 27 July to the indictment including violating the Espionage Act by keeping 31 classified documents containing national defence information after leaving office. He and Nauta have also been charged with attempting to obstruct the retrieval of classified material. This updated version of the indictment also named Carlos De Oliveira as a defendant.
In an arraignment on 13 June, Trump pleaded not guilty to all 38 charges in a federal courthouse in Miami. Judge Aileen Cannon set the trial to begin on 20 May 2024.
Manhattan ‘hush money’ case
ThePrint had reported in April this year how Trump became the first former president to be indicted with criminal charges for covering up the alleged payment of ‘hush money’ to porn star Stormy Daniels, a Playboy model, and a doorman. The former president pleaded not guilty to 34 state felony counts brought against him by a Manhattan grand jury.
These charges consisted of allegations of covering up ‘hush money’ paid to adult entertainer Stephanie Clifford (Stormy Daniels) and Playboy model Karen McDougal and a former Trump Tower doorman ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
According to the indictment, Clifford and McDougal were paid $130,000 and $150,000, respectively, to maintain their silence over their alleged ‘extramarital affair’ with Trump, while the doorman was compensated $30,000 to keep mum about his claim that the business-tycoon-turned-Republican politician had a child out of wedlock.
While paying ‘hush money’ is not illegal under US law, Trump allegedly concealed reimbursements to his lawyer — who paid people off on behalf of Trump — as legal fees to hide the bribe. If found to have “intent to defraud” including to “commit another crime or to aid or conceal”, Trump will be declared guilty under Article 175 of the New York Penal Law.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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Source: The Print
