ATLANTA: Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday on charges of racketeering and a string of election crimes after a sprawling, two-year probe into his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden in the US state of Georgia.
\nThe case \u2014 relying on laws typically used to bring down mobsters \u2014 is the fourth targeting the 77-year-old Republican this year and could lead to a watershed moment, the first televised trial of a former president in US history.
\nProsecutors in Atlanta charged the Republican leader with 13 felony counts \u2014 compounding the legal threats he is facing in multiple jurisdictions as a firestorm of investigations imperils his bid for a second White House term.
\nWith the tycoon already due to go on trial in New York, south Florida and Washington, the latest charges herald the unprecedented scenario of the 2024 presidential election being litigated as much from the courtroom as the ballot box.
\nThe twice-impeached Trump was charged with violating Georgia\u2019s Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, as well as six conspiracy counts over alleged efforts to commit forgery, impersonate a public official and submit false statements and documents.
\nThe indictment named a number of co-defendants including Trump\u2019s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who pressured local legislators over the result after the election, and Trump\u2019s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
\nGeorgia, which Biden won by fewer than 12,000 votes, presents perhaps the most serious threat to Trump\u2019s liberty as he leads the field comfortably for his party\u2019s nomination to bid for reelection.
\nEven if he is returned to the Oval Office, he would have none of the powers that presidents arguably enjoy in the federal system to pardon themselves or have prosecutors drop case.
\nRICO statutes are usually used to target organized crime.
\nUnder federal law, anyone who can be connected to a criminal \u201centerprise\u201d through which offenses were committed can be convicted under RICO. The broader Georgia law doesn\u2019t even require the existence of the enterprise.
\nAtlanta-area authorities launched the probe after Trump called Georgia officials weeks before he was due to leave the White House, pressuring them to \u201cfind\u201d the 11,780 votes that would reverse Biden\u2019s victory in the Peach State.
\nDistrict Attorney Fani Willis, Fulton County\u2019s chief prosecutor, empaneled a special grand jury that heard from around 75 witnesses before recommending a raft of felony counts in a secret report in February.
\nShe alleges that Trump\u2019s team worked with local Republicans on a scheme to replace legitimate slates of \u201celectors\u201d \u2014 the officials who certify a state\u2019s results and send them to the US Congress \u2014 with fake pro-Trump stand-ins.
\nTrump is already facing dozens of felony charges after being federally indicted over the alleged plot to subvert the election, and further prosecutions over his alleged mishandling of classified documents and keeping allegedly fraudulent business records.
\nAuthorities in Atlanta have installed security barricades outside the downtown courthouse in anticipation of a potential influx of Trump supporters and counter-protesters in the latest case.
\nRepublicans in Congress have largely united behind defending Trump from what they call a politically-motivated \u201cwitch hunt\u201d by Democrats pulling the strings at the Justice Department.
\nIt will be up to a jury, however, to decide if the prosecution has shown criminal intent by the billionaire property mogul, who denies all wrongdoing.
\nLawmakers investigating Trump\u2019s efforts to cling to power heard evidence in a series of congressional hearings last summer that would challenge his potential defense that he genuinely believed he had been cheated of the election.
\nSeveral former administration officials \u2014 including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley and Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide \u2014 described how Trump privately acknowledged he had lost.
\nAnd a California-based federal judge presiding last year over a dispute about evidence demanded by Congress ruled that Trump had signed legal documents describing evidence of election fraud that he knew were false.
\nWhile federal courthouses generally ban electronic recording, Georgia\u2019s courts are more transparent, meaning there is no bar to the proceedings being watched on televisions across the country, from the first preliminary hearing onwards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ATLANTA: Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday on charges of racketeering and a string of election crimes after a sprawling, two-year probe into his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden in the US state of Georgia. The case \u2014 relying on laws typically used to bring down mobsters \u2014 is the fourth targeting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-349438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n