August 14, 2023 - Trump indicted in Georgia 2020 election subversion probe

Former President Donald Trump has been charged with 91 crimes in four criminal cases, in four different jurisdictions. 

The new indictment returned Monday by the Fulton County grand jury accuses Trump of 13 crimes. 

The Atlanta-based prosecution is one of four criminal cases Trump is facing – two federal, and two state cases. 

In the New York case brought by Manhattan prosecutors, Trump has been charged with 34 counts stemming from the alleged 2016 campaign hush money scheme.  

Trump faces 40 charges in special counsel Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago documents case, after a superseding indictment was unveiled last month. 

Smith’s separate federal election subversion case against Trump levied four criminal charges against the former president.

Overview of the cases

Fulton County prosecutors have built a key element of their racketeering conspiracy case on several defendants' alleged efforts to “intimidate’ and “harass” Ruby Freeman, the former Georgia election worker whose emotional congressional testimony formed the basis of one of the House January 6 investigating committee’s most memorable hearings last summer.

Several defendants charged in the indictment’s RICO conspiracy count “falsely accused Fulton County election worker Ruby Freeman of committing election crimes in Fulton County, Georgia,” the indictment reads.

Additionally, one of the false statement charges brought against Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani stems from his December 2020 statement that Freeman, her daughter, fellow election worker Shaye Moss and another individual were “surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they're vials of heroin or cocaine” while at a Georgia election site.

Moss testified to US lawmakers last summer that she was not being passed a USB drive, but rather her mother was passing her a ginger mint.

Reactions from Democratic and Republican lawmakers have rolled in since former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants were indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, on Monday.

Here's what some of the top lawmakers have had to say:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both Democrats, said in a joint statement that the indictment "portrays a repeated pattern of criminal activity."

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said President Joe Biden has "weaponized government” against Trump.

Republican Congressman Jim Jordan — the House Judiciary Committee chairman and a top Trump ally on Capitol Hill — defended Trump in a tweet Monday night.

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik slammed the indictment moments after it was unsealed.

CNN's Lauren Fox, Alayna Treene and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.

Donald Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani is in the middle of many of the episodes that form the basis of the sweeping indictment against the former president and 18 other defendants unsealed on Monday.

Giuliani is charged with 13 counts in the indictment, more than any other defendant other than Trump, who also faces 13 charges.

Giuliani is charged with a RICO violation — the racketeering conspiracy that formed the basis of the indictment — as well as several additional felonies, including soliciting Georgia state lawmakers, making false statements to the Georgia House and Senate and the effort to put forward fake electors in Georgia.

Giuliani was also listed as a co-conspirator in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal indictment of Trump for efforts to overturn the 2020 election. 

The Fulton County indictment points to Giuliani’s testimony in Georgia after the 2020 election, in which he made false claims about election fraud in Georgia. Prosecutors also list Giuliani’s outreach to officials in other states, including lawmakers in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona, where they allege he made more false claims of election fraud and tried to solicit them to appoint fake electors.

Among the calls cited were to Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a key witness in the January 6 hearings. 

Several of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Fulton County indictment are facing charges in connection with the breach of a voting system in a rural Georgia county that took place after the 2020 election.  

CNN has previously reported that multiple of the newly-indicted co-defendants helped orchestrate and carry out the breach in Coffee County. 

 The indictment alleged that several Trump allies committed specific crimes related to their involvement in the Coffee County breach, as well as allegedly lying about their roles. Those charges include computer trespassing, perjury, conspiracy to commit election fraud and conspiracy to commit computer theft, the indictment states. 

The people charged in connection with the Coffee County breach are:

The indictment echoes previous CNN reporting about Powell’s alleged role in the breach, including that she contracted a cyber-forensics firm to examine and copy voting systems in Coffee County without the proper authorization to do so.

Latham and Hampton both face charges for allegedly helping facilitate the breach, according to the indictment. Latham also faces perjury charges for lying about her involvement in the Coffee County breach during a deposition conducted as part of a long-running civil lawsuit related to election security in Georgia.

Hall’s role in the breach was similarly exposed during that civil lawsuit, initially by a phone recording where he acknowledges his involvement. 

The civil lawsuit, brought several years ago against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger by a coalition of election security advocates, is cited throughout the indictment as a key source of evidence prosecutors used to bring criminal charges against those Trump allies involved. 

CNN has previously reported that surveillance video, text messages and other communications unearthed during this civil case provided essential evidence for prosecutors investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. 

As recently as Sunday, CNN reported that Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia were in possession of text messages and emails directly connecting members of Trump’s legal team to the early January 2021 voting system breach in Coffee County.

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump released a statement calling the grand jury presentation “one sided” and Monday's events “shocking and absurd.”

“We look forward to a detailed review of this indictment which is undoubtedly just as flawed and unconstitutional as this entire process has been,” Trump attorneys Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg wrote in the statement.

Full statement below:

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was among the defendants indicted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis Monday for their role in helping former President Donald Trump try to overturn the 2020 election. 

Beyond Trump himself, Meadows is the highest-ranking White House official to be charged in the Georgia indictment.

Meadows was notably absent among the six Trump co-conspirators named in an earlier indictment stemming from special counsel Jack Smith's election interference probe. 

The former chief of staff was ordered by a South Carolina judge to testify before the Georgia special grand jury. But a juror said earlier this year that Meadows declined to answer questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination as well as other privileges.

Meadows did testify to the special counsel grand jury in Washington.

Prosecutors allege Meadows furthered the conspiracy to try to overturn the 2020 election.

Meadows -- like all 19 defendants -- is charged in the indictment with a violation of Georgia’s RICO law. Meadows is also charged with solicitation of the violation of oath of office by a public officer over Trump’s January 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, when Trump asked him to “find” the votes he needed to win Georgia. Meadows was one of the White House officials on the call. 

The indictment also describes Meadows’ attempt to enter into the space in Cobb County, Georgia, where 2020 election signatures were being audited, as well as a text message Meadows sent to the Georgia secretary of state’s chief investigator that stated, "Is there a way to speed up Fulton county signature verification in order to have results before Jan 6 if the trump campaign assist financially." 

CNN has reached out to an attorney for Meadows for comment.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told reporters that it will be up to a judge to set the date of the trial in the Georgia 2020 election interference case.

"This office will be submitting a proposed scheduling order within this week. However, that will totally be at the discretion of the judge," Willis said.

She said they wanted to "move this case along" and will propose a trial date within the next six months. She said she did not have a desire that Georgia be the first or last trial that former President Donald Trump faces.

"I want to try him and be respectful of our sovereign states. We do want to move this case along, and so we will be asking for a proposed order that occurs, a trial date within the next six months," she told reporters.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said she intends to try all 19 defendants in the indictment together.

When asked by CNN during Monday night's news conference if she will try the defendants together, Willis replied, "Yes."

Willis did not elaborate further, but did say each of the 19 people named in the indictment were charged with one count of "violating Georgia's Racketeer, Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act through participation in a criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia, and elsewhere, to accomplish the illegal goal of allowing Donald J. Trump to seize the presidential term of office beginning on January 20, 2021."

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