Former US President Donald Trump responded with fury early on Tuesday morning after he was indicted in Georgia over his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.
Trump took to his Truth Social account to blast Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after he was charged with more than a dozen felonies, ranging from filing false documents to racketeering. Also named were 18 others as defendants in the indictment, including attorney Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawyer Sidney Powell.
“So, the Witch Hunt continues! 19 people Indicated tonight, including the former President of the United States, me, by an out of control and very corrupt District Attorney who campaigned and raised money on, ‘I will get Trump,’” the former president wrote.
The investigation began shortly after Trump’s January 2, 2021, phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, after he lost the state to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Trump pressed the election official to “find 11,780 votes,” falsely claiming he won the state.
“We have won this election in Georgia,” Trump claimed during the recorded call. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. You know, I mean, having the correct ― the people of Georgia are angry. ... And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you’ve recalculated.”
Raffensperger pushed back on the president’s lies and upheld the state’s certification of Biden as the winner.
The indictment goes far beyond that call, however, laying out a 161-act criminal conspiracy across 98 pages. Prosecutors charged all the defendants under Georgia’s RICO Act, which is used in cases where multiple people have allegedly worked together to further a criminal enterprise.
Willis said late on Monday that arrest warrants had been issued for all 19 people named in the document and gave them until August 25 at noon to surrender. She added that her office will seek a speedy trial that would begin sometime in the next six months.
Willis had sought to prepare the city of Atlanta for any protests surrounding the latest indictment last week, warning law enforcement to prepare for “heightened security” before the announcement. The Fulton County sheriff erected barriers in front of the main courthouse and limited access to the surrounding streets.
The indictment is Trump’s fourth this year.
He faces charges in New York linked to hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels at the end of the 2016 presidential campaign. And the former president has been charged in two separate investigations conducted by special prosecutor Jack Smith: One in Florida over his handling of classified documents after he left the White House and another in Washington, DC, over his plot to remain in power in 2020 after he lost to Biden.
Trump has vehemently denied any and all charges levelled against him, instead painting the investigations as a Democrat-fuelled witch hunt. The former president has blasted Smith as “deranged” and attacked the judges assigned to his cases.
Regardless, the latest indictment will force Trump to defend himself in multiple cases, in multiple states, all while running for the Republican presidential nomination for 2024.