Key events
Joan E Greve
For the voting rights leaders who worked tirelessly to deliver Democratic wins in Georgia, Donald Trump’s indictment in Fulton county marked a clear rebuke of his extensive efforts to disenfranchise the state’s voters, reaffirming the sanctity and the power of the ballot.
“This indictment is a win for voting rights and democracy because it strengthens our ability to defend it from its most imminent threat: Donald Trump,” said Xakota Espinoza, a spokesperson for the Georgia-based voting rights group Fair Fight.
It is critical that we send a message that our democracy is sacrosanct, whether it is at the ballot box or courthouse.
The Fulton county indictment represents a crucial turning point in a drama that has been unfolding since Joe Biden was declared the winner of Georgia in November 2020. Two statewide recounts in Georgia confirmed Biden defeated Trump by roughly 12,000 votes, making him the first Democratic presidential nominee to win the state since 1992. The victory was heralded as a landmark achievement for Democrats, particularly the Black voters who make up much of the party’s base in Georgia.
Kendra Davenport Cotton, chief executive officer at the New Georgia Project Action Fund, emphasized that the validity of Biden’s win in Georgia had been determined beyond question long before Trump’s indictment. But the charges against Trump reassert the electoral power of the multiracial coalition that carried Biden to victory.
“We believe facts. Biden won the 2020 race because Georgia voters showed up and showed out in record breaking numbers,” Cotton said.
The folks that I work with here at NGP Action Fund have always known the power of Georgia voters and have always known what Georgia voters are capable of – especially Black, brown and young voters.
Prosecutors on the Donald Trump case presented the evidence to the grand jury meeting in Atlanta on Monday, after the clerk for the court appeared to accidentally post an incomplete docket report outlining a number of charges against Trump earlier in the day, even though more witnesses were still scheduled to testify.
At about midday, a two-page docket report posted to the Fulton county court website indicated charges against Trump including racketeering, conspiracy and false statements. The appearance of the report set off a flurry of news media activity, but then the document vanished.
A spokesperson for the district attorney said reports “that those charges were filed [are] inaccurate. Beyond that we cannot comment.”
Trump’s lawyers railed against the incident, saying in a statement:
The Fulton county district attorney’s office has once again shown that they have no respect for the integrity of the grand jury process. This was not a simple administrative mistake.
A proposed indictment should only be in the hands of the district attorney’s office. Yet it somehow made its way to the clerk’s office and was assigned a case number and a judge before the grand jury even deliberated. This is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations.
Donald Trump case tracker: where does each investigation stand?
Twice impeached and now indicted in four cases: Donald Trump faces serious criminal charges in New York, Florida, Washington and Georgia over a hush-money scheme during the 2016 election, his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
As Trump prepares for those cases to go to trial, the former president is also confronting a verdict that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation of the writer E Jean Carroll. A New York jury awarded Carroll, who accused Trump of assaulting her in 1996, $5m in damages.
Here is where each case against Trump stands:
The Fulton county district attorney’s office spent more than two years investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia and impaneled a special grand jury that made it more straightforward to compel evidence from recalcitrant witnesses.
Unlike in the federal system, grand juries in the state of Georgia need to already be considering an indictment when they subpoena documents and testimony. By using a special grand jury, prosecutors can collect evidence without the pressure of having to file charges.
The special grand jury in the Trump investigation heard evidence for roughly seven months and recommended indictments of more than a dozen people including the former president himself, its forewoman strongly suggested in interviews with multiple news outlets.
Trump’s legal team sought last month to invalidate the work of the special grand jury and have Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis disqualified from proceedings, but the Georgia supreme court rejected the motion, ruling that Trump lacked “either the facts or the law necessary to mandate Ms Willis’s disqualification”.
When the prosecutors on the Trump case eventually presented the evidence to the grand jury meeting on Mondays and Tuesdays, the process went faster than anticipated, and at least two witnesses who had been scheduled to testify on Tuesday had their summons moved up by a day.
Read the full text of the indictment against Donald Trump and his allies
A grand jury in Georgia has issued an indictment accusing Donald Trump of efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Prosecutors brought 41 counts against Trump and his associates, including forgery and racketeering, which is used to target members of organized crime groups.
Read the full text of the indictment below.
Donald Trump and 18 others indicted over bid to reverse 2020 election loss in Georgia
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Another week, another indictment for Donald Trump. The former president and some of his closest confidants were indicted late on Monday night on state racketeering and conspiracy charges over efforts to reverse his defeat in the 2020 election in Georgia.
The sprawling 41-count indictment, handed down by a state grand jury in Atlanta late on Monday night, charges Trump himself with 13 counts and accuses him of orchestrating a criminal enterprise.
In addition to Trump, prosecutors in the office of the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis charged 18 other defendants, including his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows as well as his 2020 election lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro. All 19 defendants have until next Friday, 25 August, to voluntarily surrender, Willis told reporters late Monday night.
This latest indictment makes Trump a criminal defendant in a fourth case as he campaigns to recapture the presidency. It is also particularly significant because the charges come at a state level, which means he would not be able to undo any potential convictions if he were re-elected president in 2024.
In a statement following the indictment, Trump’s lawyers condemned the charges, calling the day’s events “shocking and absurd” and accused Willis of building her case on “witnesses who harbor their own personal and political interests”.
Here’s what else we’re watching today:
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9am ET: Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.
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10.20am: Biden will leave for Andrews, where he will fly to Milwaukee.
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10.45am: The Senate will meet in a pro forma session.
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11am: The House will meet in a pro forma session.
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2pm: Biden will speak about Bidenomics at Ingeteam.
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3.20pm: Biden will leave Milwaukee for Andrews.
