Rudy Giuliani, a key figure in former President Donald Trump’s effort to remain in power after the 2020 election, was indicted in Georgia on Monday for his role in what prosecutors called a sweeping conspiracy to overturn the state’s results and subvert the will of the people.
Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, levelled 13 federal charges against Giuliani as part of the state’s years-long investigation into election tampering. He is charged with a violation of Georgia’s RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations), soliciting the violation of oath by a public official, false statements and conspiracies to commit forgery and file false documents, among other charges.
Trump was also indicted on Monday on 13 charges linked to the alleged conspiracy.
The indictment names a total of 19 defendants, including many of the attorneys who worked on Trump’s plot to remain in office. The document names John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, among many others.
All have been charged with violations of Georgia’s RICO Act, which has traditionally been used to charge organised crime structures. It can be used broadly in cases where multiple defendants are working together to further a criminal enterprise, like attempting to overturn an election.
The indictment came after a grand jury in Atlanta heard hours of testimony. The judge in the case kept the courtroom open past normal business hours for additional testimony, the culmination of more than 2½ years of investigation.
Giuliani was a key figure in multiple efforts to change the results in Georgia, spreading unfounded conspiracies about voter fraud and claiming voting machines were corrupted in favour of Democrats. All of those lies have been disproved, and he still faces lawsuits alleging defamation over his comments about voting machines.
His attorneys have maintained he did nothing improper, sentiments he repeated earlier this week.
“I shouldn’t be [worried],” Giuliani said on Monday on NBC. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
At the centre of the case are the phone calls Trump made to election officials in Georgia in the days after Joe Biden won the state, including when he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” so he could surpass Biden’s margin of victory and instead be determined the winner.
The indictment is Trump’s fourth this year. The former president faces state charges in New York linked to hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election, federal charges over his handling of classified documents after he left the White House and further federal charges over his effort to stay in power after he lost the 2020 race.
Trump has rejected all charges against him, railing against the prosecutors, judges and witnesses in the cases.