Today's recap
We’re wrapping up our live blog for the day, but will continue to bring updates on the Guardian’s home page. Here’s a recap of what’s happened today, in the aftermath of the late-night indictment in Georgia unveiling criminal charges against Donald Trump and 18 codefendants over efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
The 98-page indictment handed down by a Fulton county grand jury includes 41 counts of crimes, including 13 against Trump. It details lies the former president and his co-defendants told the public in an effort to keep him in power.
The charges were brought via Georgia’s Rico act, which has typically been used to go after the mafia.
Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff and one of his codefendants in Georgia, has filed to move the case into federal court – something that Trump himself is expected to replicate in an effort to seek a friendlier jury and land a judge that he appointed.
Another codefendant, John Eastman, who is considered one of the main architects of Trump’s strategy to overturn the 2020 election, also plans to fight the indictment.
Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, responded to Donald Trump’s announcement that he would present an “irrefutable report” on election fraud in Georgia on Monday by saying: “The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen.”
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, made a brief statement saying: “The most basic principles of a strong democracy are accountability and respect for the Constitution and rule of law. You either have it, or you don’t.”
Republican politicians, including candidates for the presidency in 2024, are seeking to defend Donald Trump over the indictment in Georgia.
Hillary Clinton said she did not “feel any satisfaction” about Donald Trump’s extreme legal predicament and instead felt “great profound sadness”
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In the separate federal case over Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, Carlos de Oliveira, the property manager of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, pleaded not guilty to multiple obstruction-related offenses.
– Guardian staff
Read more:
Mark Meadows files to move Fulton county case to federal court
Mark Meadows, one of 19 people including Donald Trump who were criminally charged over efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, has filed to move the case into federal court.
Meadows served as White House chief of staff under Trump. His lawyers have filed the petition to go from state to the US district court for the northern district of Georgia, arguing for the switch based on the idea that the charges stem from Meadows conduct in his capacity as an officer of the federal government.
Trump is expected to make a similar move, which would allow him to seek a potentially friendlier jury pool and the chance of landing a judge that he appointed.
“Nothing Mr. Meadows is alleged in the indictment to have done is criminal per se: arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the President’s behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the President,” Terwilliger wrote in the filing.
The filing also indicates that Meadows plans to file a motion to dismiss the state’s case.
John Eastman, who is considered one of the main architects of Trump’s strategy to overturn the 2020 election, and is one of the defendants in the Georgia case, plans to fight the indictment, according to his lawyer.
“This is a legal cluster-bomb that leaves unexploded ordinances for lawyers to navigate in perpetuity,” said Eastman’s attorney Harvey Silverglate, in a statement. “It goes hand-in-glove with the recent effort to criminalize lawful political speech and legal advice.”
Eastman, an attorney himself, is also identified as a co-conspirator in the federal inquiry on the January 6 insurrection. He is facing disciplinary charges in the State Bar Court of California due his development of a dubious legal strategy to overturn the 2020 presidential election by having former vice president Mike Pence interfere in the election certification.
Updated
What is the Georgia Rico Act?
The charges against Trump were brought via Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (Rico) Act, which essentially allows prosecutors to link together different crimes committed by different people and bring criminal charges against a larger criminal enterprise. The law requires prosecutors to show the existence of a criminal enterprise that has committed at least two underlying crimes.
Prosecutors have long used the federal Rico Act to go after the mafia. But Georgia’s version is even more expansive than the federal statute. It allows prosecutors in the state to bring racketeering charges if a defendant attempts or solicits a crime, even if they don’t bring charges for those crimes themselves.
How does an indictment work?
In the indictment by the state of Georgia, the state wrote: “Trump and the other defendants charged in this indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump. That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity.”
Read more:
Updated
Advocacy groups are outraged after the Arkansas department of education warned state high schools not to offer an advanced placement course on African American history.
The admonition from Arkansas education officials is the latest example of conservative lawmakers limiting education on racial history, sexual orientation and other topics they label as “indoctrination”.
The Arkansas Education Association (AEA), a professional organization of educators in the state, said the latest decision is of “grave concern” to its members and other citizens worried about “the abandonment of teaching African American history and culture”.
“Having this course pulled out from under our students at this late juncture is just another marginalizing move that has already played out in other states,” said a statement from AEA president April Reisma, which was shared with the Guardian.
In a statement to the Guardian, NAACP president and chief executive officer Derrick Johnson called the decision “abhorrent” and an “attempt to strip high school students of an opportunity to get a jumpstart on their college degree”.
“Let’s be clear – the continued, state-level attacks on Black history are undemocratic and regressive,” Johnson said.
The sad reality is that these politicians are determined to neglect our nation’s youth in service of their own political agendas.
President Joe Biden traveled to a manufacturing warehouse in Wisconsin on Tuesday where he delivered remarks on the Inflation Reduction Act, a major piece of economic legislation he signed into law a year ago.
Wisconsin is among the key states where Biden needs to persuade voters that his policies are having a positive impact on their lives, but polls show that most people know little about the Act or what it does, AP reported.
“It’s really kind of basic: we just decided to invest in America again,” Biden said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
The president chose to ignore Donald Trump in his speech, but he made the economic case personal by directly challenging the state’s Republican senator Ron Johnson, who he said “believes outsourcing manufacturing jobs is a great thing”.
Administration officials say the trip is aimed at recognizing the effects of the law, which passed Congress on party-line votes. According to the White House, in Wisconsin, private firms have committed more than $3 billion in manufacturing and clean energy investments since Biden was sworn into office.
The Fulton county court clerk released a statement acknowledging that it had published on its website a document about Donald Trump being criminally charged.
At about midday on Monday, 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.
The court clerk has now said it had been testing its system before the grand jury voted later in the day on whether to indict Trump.
Yesterday, @Reuters obtained a docket report on the Fulton County clerk’s website that appeared to detail charges against Trump.
— Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) August 15, 2023
After initially calling the docket report “fictitious,” the clerk’s office has released a statement explaining what happened: pic.twitter.com/gbowdCbVA1
Alabama Republicans defended their decision not to create a second majority-Black district in a hearing before a panel of federal judges over the state’s redrawn congressional maps.
State Republicans continue to resist court orders, including from the supreme court in June, to amend the congressional maps to give Black voters increased political power and representation.
The three-judge panel, which blocked the use of the state’s old map last year, will decide whether to let Alabama’s new districts go forward or step in and draw new congressional districts for the state. The results of the extended court battle could also determine whether Democrats pick up another seat in Congress, where Republicans currently hold a slim majority.
In a surprise June decision, the supreme court upheld the panel’s earlier finding that the state’s then map – which had one Black-majority district out of seven in a state where more than one in four residents is Black – likely violated the federal Voting Rights Act.
In response to the ruling, Alabama Republicans boosted the percentage of Black voters in the majority-white second congressional district, now represented by Republican representative Barry Moore, from about 30% to 39.9%, failing to give Black voters a majority which would allow them to elect their candidate of choice.
Florida governor and Donald Trump’s leading rival for the GOP presidential nomination in most polls, Ron DeSantis, was critical of the Georgia indictment.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, DeSantis said the indictment was “an example of this criminalization of politics. I don’t think that this is something that’s good for the country”.
He also accused Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis of using an “inordinate amount of resources” on the Trump case while failing to tackle crime.
Donald Trump
Of course, at the center of the criminal investigation is Donald Trump. On 2 January 2021, Trump phoned the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, pressuring him “to find 11,780 votes” – the number of ballots needed to overturn Biden’s victory in Fulton county. News reports of that hour-long phone call kicked off Willis’s investigation.
He also directed Mike Pence, then the vice-president, to reject the electoral vote in Georgia and other states revealed to be involved in what is now known as the “fake electors” scheme.
Trump is facing several other charges in different courts, including mishandling of classified documents, his role in the January 6 Capitol insurrection and hush money payments to an adult film actor.
Rudy Giuliani
Giuliani, a former Trump campaign attorney and New York mayor, repeatedly spewed false claims of election fraud in the months following Biden’s 2020 victory. That December, he met with Georgia lawmakers and spewed baseless claims of election fraud such as a conspiracy by voting machine manufacturers to flip votes from Trump to Biden. The Department of Justice and the House January 6 committee have also investigated Giuliani for his role in orchestrating the false electors scheme, where Trump allies in multiple states produced fake certificates saying he won the election. A watchdog group found Giuliani to be a “central figure”. A disciplinary panel has said Giuliani should be disbarred.
Mark Meadows
Serving as Donald Trump’s chief of staff during the 2020 election and its aftermath, Meadows was at the center of hundreds of messages about how to keep Trump in power, according to texts he turned over to the House January 6 select committee. Meadows was also on the infamous phone call Trump placed to Raffensperger demanding he “find 11,780 votes”. A judge ordered Meadows to testify in the Georgia election investigation – though Meadows had repeatedly tried to avoid doing so.
Jenna Ellis
Ellis, a Trump campaign attorney and former Colorado prosecutor, spread multiple statements claiming voter fraud during the 2020 election and sent at least two memos advising Mike Pence to reject Biden’s victory in Georgia and other states. She was ordered to appear before the special grand jury in 2022. Earlier this year, the Colorado supreme court censured Ellis for making false statements and she acknowledged making misrepresentations as part of the agreement.
Kenneth Chesebro
Also known as “co-conspirator 5” in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal election fraud inquiry, Chesebro has been revealed to be one of the main architects of the fake electors scheme –– which he described as a “bold, controversial plan”. The New York Times obtained a copy of a memo from Chesebro to a Wisconsin attorney laying out a three-pronged plan to overturn election results in six states, including Georgia, and keep Trump in power. Willis subpoenaed Chesebro to appear before the special grand jury but the New York-based attorney moved to quash it.
Sidney Powell
An attorney associated with Trump’s campaign after the 2020 election, Powell, who filed a lawsuit against Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, alleging voter fraud, is thought to be “co-conspirator 3” in the federal investigation by Jack Smith. Along with Rudy Giuliani, Powell appeared regularly on conservative news networks where she spewed baseless claims of election fraud, including foreign rigging of voting machines and was one of the most prominent names in the defamation case brought upon Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems, whose individual case against Powell is still pending.
Jeffrey Clark
A former justice department attorney, Clark has been identified as “co- conspirator 4” in the federal January 6 investigation. Clark allegedly tried to coerce justice department officials to sign a letter to officials in several states. He drafted a letter to Georgia officials in late December 2020 falsely claiming the justice department had “identified significant concerns” that may have impacted election results in multiple states, including Georgia –– but it remained unsent. He also reportedly plotted with Trump to oust the acting attorney general, but failed.
John Eastman
Thought to be one of the main architects of Trump’s strategy to overturn the 2020 election, Eastman – identified as “co-conspirator 2” in the federal January 6 inquiry – drafted a six-step plan that directed Mike Pence to reject Biden’s victory.
Who’s who in the Georgia Trump investigation?
These are the people involved in the high-profile election investigation that could have far-reaching implications for Donald Trump, who may well face jail time if convicted, and his chances of winning the Republican nomination in 2024.
Fani Willis
Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis, a famously tough prosecutor against gangs and organized crime, is overseeing the election investigation, which she launched in 2021, just weeks after being sworn in. A career Atlanta-area criminal prosecutor, Willis has been known to aggressively use Rico, an anti-racketeering law that is stronger in Georgia than under federal statute.
Trump and his lawyers have sought to disqualify Willis from carrying out the investigation, filing motions to do so in March and July. Trump branded Willis a “young, ambitious, Radical Left Democrat ‘Prosecutor’” in a Truth Social post last year. Willis, a Democrat, is the first Black woman to serve as Fulton county DA.
Robert McBurney
The Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney was selected to supervise the special grand jury that put together recommendations for Willis’s investigation into Trump’s behavior surrounding election results. McBurney released a partial version of the panel’s final report in February, keeping the majority of its findings under seal. Trump’s lawyers targeted McBurney, a former prosecutor, for approving Willis’s special grand jury request, asking that he disqualify her from the case.
The grand juries
Willis requested a special grand jury, assembled last May to aid her investigation into Trump and his allies’ meddling with election results. After eight months and 75 witness interviews, the jurors compiled a report with recommendations for the case. The panel was dissolved in January. Afterward, the foreperson, Emily Kohrs, hinted they recommended more than a dozen indictments, drawing backlash for her media blitz.
McBurney has empaneled two regular grand juries – and one is likely to consider charges against Trump and his allies.
Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said she accidentally ate a “magic mushroom” while on a recent trip to China.
Yellen visit to Beijing last month included a stop at a Yunnan restaurant chain, where she ate the local jian shou qing.
“So I went with this large group of people and the person who had arranged our dinner did the ordering,” she told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday.
There was a delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later.
She said she had “read that if the mushrooms are cooked properly, which I’m sure they were at this very good restaurant, that they have no impact.” She added:
But all of us enjoyed the mushrooms, the restaurant, and none of us felt any ill effects from having eaten them.
Updated
Biden to visit Hawaii 'as soon as he can' after deadly wildfires
Joe Biden said he will travel to Hawaii to visit the devastation left behind by the country’s deadliest wildfires in over a century, killing at least 99 people and reducing neighborhoods to ash.
“My wife, Jill, and I are going to travel to Hawaii as soon as we can,” Biden said in his first public comments on the disaster since late last week.
I don’t want to get in the way – I’ve been to too many disaster areas, but I want to go and make sure we got everything they need. I want to be sure we don’t disrupt the ongoing recovery efforts.
President Biden says he and First Lady Jill Biden will go to Hawaii “as soon as we can”:
— The Recount (@therecount) August 15, 2023
“I don't want to get in the way. I've been to too many disaster areas ... I want to be sure we don't disrupt the ongoing recovery efforts.” pic.twitter.com/ydZ8M3xpXv
Deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton said earlier today that the White House was having “active conversations” about when the Bidens could visit.
Biden’s remarks at a wind and electric power manufacturing plant in Milwaukee were his first comments on the Maui wildfires since last week, when he declared a federal emergency. The period of silence drew criticism from Republicans, including Donald Trump.
Updated
Joe Biden’s landmark climate legislation has been “disappointing” and failed to deliver protections to car industry workers confronted by the transition to electric vehicles, according to the head of the US’s leading autoworkers union, which has pointedly withheld is endorsement of the president for next year’s election.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed by Biden a year ago this week, has bestowed huge incentives to car companies to manufacture electric vehicles without any accompanying guarantees over worker pay and conditions, Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), told the Guardian.
“So far it’s been disappointing. If the IRA continues to bring sweatshops and a continued race to the bottom it will be a tragedy,” Fain said.
This is our generation’s defining moment with electric vehicles. The government should invest in US manufacturing but money can’t go to companies with no strings attached. Labor needs a seat at the table. There should be labor standards built in, this is the future of the car industry at stake.
The UAW, which is based in the car-making heartland of Detroit and has around 400,000 members, has so far refused to endorse Biden for next year’s presidential election, a major political headache for a president who has called himself a “union guy” and counts upon organized labor as a key part of his base, particularly in crucial midwest states such as Michigan.
The ire of unions has been a thorny problem in the Biden administration’s attempts to speed the proliferation of electric vehicles and cut planet-heating emissions from transportation, the largest source of US carbon pollution.
Joe Biden is talking in Milwaukee at an Ingeteam factory, a company built on the drive for clean energy that manufactures onshore wind turbine generators.
The US president is in the vital swing state of Wisconsin to talk about his “Bidenomics” policies to boost the embattled US middle class and US industries such as manufacturing, construction and semiconductor technology, especially those with strong union membership.
He’s in Wisconsin on the eve of the anniversary of his signing into law a major bipartisan legislative plank, the healthcare, climate and tax package called the Inflation Reduction Act.
The scene of Biden talking to crowds of union members cheering his touting of a “made in America” policy and green energy that he said has the potential to cheaper to power the US than fossil fuels provides a sharp contrast to his chief Republican rival for the White House, Donald Trump after the 2024 candidate hoping to return to the presidency was handed his fourth criminal indictment last night, in Georgia.
Next week, the first Republican primary season debate will be held in Milwaukee.
US president Joe Biden just stepped up to the podium to speak in Milwaukee. Union leaders and members are there and so are some of Wisconsin’s senior Democrats, the state governor Tony Evers, US Senator Tammy Baldwin and congresswoman Gwen Moore.
After hailing his fellow Democrats, Biden is now lamenting the disastrous wildfires that have decimated parts of Maui in Hawaii.
Biden said he wants to go there as soon as it’s feasible – “as soon as I can” – but isn’t rushing there immediately so as not to “get in the way”, as a presidential visit is always a huge project for any locality.
Updated
Interim summary
Hello again, US politics live blog readers, it’s been a lively day so far as the ripples continue to spread from the late-night indictment unveiled in Georgia against Donald Trump and 18 codefendants, accusing them of an organized racket to overturn Trump’s defeat by Biden in one of the decisive state results of the 2020 presidential election.
There will be a lot more news in the coming hours and we’ll continue to bring it to you as it happens. US president Joe Biden is about to speak in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Here’s where things stand:
Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, responded to Donald Trump’s announcement that he would present an “irrefutable report” on election fraud in Georgia on Monday by saying: “The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen.”
Hunter Biden’s lead criminal defense attorney, Christopher Clark, asked a federal judge for permission to withdraw from the criminal case involving his client on the grounds he might be called to testify as a witness in future proceedings.
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, made a brief statement saying: “The most basic principles of a strong democracy are accountability and respect for the Constitution and rule of law. You either have it, or you don’t.”
Carlos de Oliveira, the property manager of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, pleaded not guilty to multiple obstruction-related offenses in the case related to the former president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Republican politicians, including candidates for the presidency in 2024, are seeking to defend Donald Trump over the indictment in Georgia.
Hillary Clinton said she did not “feel any satisfaction” about Donald Trump’s extreme legal predicament and instead felt “great profound sadness”.
Donald Trump said he would present an “irrefutable report” on election fraud in Georgia on Monday at his private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Can Trump still run for president?
Yes. The US constitution does not prohibit anyone charged with a crime, nor anyone convicted of one, from holding office.
The 14th amendment, however, does bar anyone who has taken an oath to protect the United States and engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.
Relying on that provision, a slew of separate civil lawsuits in state courts are expected in the near future to try to bar Trump from holding office.
Jenna Ellis, a Trump campaign attorney and former Colorado prosecutor, said she will simply “trust the Lord” after she was indicted last night in Georgia over alleged election meddling.
Posting to Twitter this morning, Ellis wrote:
The Democrats and the Fulton County DA are criminalizing the practice of law. I am resolved to trust the Lord and I will simply continue to honor, praise, and serve Him.
The Democrats and the Fulton County DA are criminalizing the practice of law. I am resolved to trust the Lord and I will simply continue to honor, praise, and serve Him. I deeply appreciate all of my friends who have reached out offering encouragement and support. pic.twitter.com/3fFNObv4Ff
— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) August 15, 2023
Ellis spread multiple statements claiming voter fraud during the 2020 election and sent at least two memos advising Mike Pence to reject Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia and other states.
Earlier this year, the Colorado supreme court censured Ellis for making false statements and she acknowledged making misrepresentations as part of the agreement.
Updated
An early test in for prosecutors in Georgia in the new racketeering case against Donald Trump will be the former president’s effort to remove his case to federal court, according to a Politico report.
Trump is almost certain to attempt to have the case moved to federal court, which could land him a friendlier jury pool and a chance to appear in front of a judge he appointed, the report says.
To try to get the case into federal court, Trump is expected to argue that much of the conduct he’s been charged with was undertaken in his capacity as an officer of the federal government, because he was still president during the critical period when he and his allies attempted to subvert the 2020 election results.
Trump has already attempted to make this move in New York, where he is facing state charges for falsifying business records to hide reimbursements made to his then fixer, Michael Cohen, for his role in paying $130,000 to the adult film star, Stormy Daniels, ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
A judge last month rejected Trump’s bid to move his hush money criminal case to federal court, ruling that the former president had failed to meet a high legal bar for changing jurisdiction.
2020 election in Georgia 'was not stolen', says governor
Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, has responded to Donald Trump’s announcement that he would present an “irrefutable report” on election fraud in Georgia on Monday.
In a post alongside a screenshot of the former president’s claim, Kemp wrote:
The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen.
The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen.
— Brian Kemp (@BrianKempGA) August 15, 2023
For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward - under oath - and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair and will continue to be as long as I… pic.twitter.com/jaru2iBDo7
Updated
White House spokesperson Oliver Dalton declined to comment on the latest indictment of Donald Trump over his attempt to overturn his defeat in Georgia by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
From USA Today’s Joey Garrison:
"I'm certainly not going to comment on that," White House spox @ODalton46 tells reporters when asked about the Trump Georgia indictment.
— Joey Garrison (@joeygarrison) August 15, 2023
"You all will make your editorial decisions, but this president will stay focused on delivering for the American people ... I think we've seen this movie before," @ODalton46 says when asked whether the WH is concerned about Trump indictments overshadowing Bidenomics message.
— Joey Garrison (@joeygarrison) August 15, 2023
Updated
Hunter Biden’s top lawyer asks to withdraw from case
Hunter Biden’s lead criminal defense attorney, Christopher Clark, asked a federal judge for permission to withdraw from the case on the grounds he might be called to testify as a witness in future proceedings.
Clark’s notice to the court is the latest development in the long-running negotiation between the justice department and Hunter Biden, who is accused of misdemeanor tax crimes and a felony gun-related charge.
In a court filing on Sunday, lawyers for Hunter Biden alleged that prosecutors reneged on a plea deal that would have resolved the charges against him. Part of the plea deal which unexpectedly fell apart in July remains “valid and binding”, they argued.
Federal prosecutors, led by US attorney David Weiss, had on Friday asked the court to cancel its request that the two sides reach a renewed agreement on the deal “since there is no longer a plea agreement or diversion agreement for the Court to consider”. But Hunter Biden’s lawyers said the guilty pleas were “separate and independent” from the diversion agreement that is set to drop his felony gun charges after two years. They said the diversion agreement was executed at the July hearing even as the overall deal collapsed and Hunter Biden intends to abide by its terms.
In his withdrawal request, Clark said his stepping down from the case “is necessitated by recent developments in the matter”.
Weiss, a Trump appointee who has been investigating Hunter Biden in a Delaware district court since 2018, has asked the court to dismiss the case so that federal prosecutors can bring additional tax charges against him outside of the state, including in California and DC, and bring the case to trial.
How is this case different from other criminal cases pending against Trump?
This latest indictment against Donald Trump is the second case that has sought any kind of criminal accountability for his attempt to overturn the election. It is the fourth time Trump has been charged with a crime this year.
Earlier in August, special counsel Jack Smith filed four federal charges against Trump for trying to overturn the election. Trump has pleaded not guilty to those charges, and Smith has moved to set a trial date for 2 January. If Trump were elected president while the case was still pending, he would almost certainly move to fire Smith and get rid of the charges. He could also theoretically pardon himself if he has been convicted. The Georgia case is different because Trump cannot interfere in the case, even if he is president, and cannot issue a pardon.
In June, Smith charged Trump with illegally retaining national defense information under the Espionage Act and obstructing the government’s attempt to retrieve the documents. Trump pleaded not guilty.
In March, Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in Manhattan. Those charges are connected to a $130,000 payment he made to Stormy Daniels, a porn star, with whom he is alleged to have had an extramarital affair. Michael Cohen, Trump’s attorney at the time, paid the money to Daniels through a shell company and Trump reimbursed him, cataloguing it as a legal expense. Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said that amounted to falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
Donald Trump had been “angry but prepared” for the latest indictments in Georgia, a source close to the former president told the BBC.
People close to Trump told the news channel that his legal team will push for a delay in the Georgia case, then hope to win the election in 2024 and expect the state’s Republican governor to pardon him.
Brad Raffensperger makes brief statement after Trump indictment
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, made a brief statement this morning following last night’s indictment.
“The most basic principles of a strong democracy are accountability and respect for the Constitution and rule of law,” he said.
You either have it, or you don’t.
On 2 January 2021, Trump called Raffensperger, the Republican who serves as Georgia’s top election official, and asked him to overturn the election.
“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state,” Trump said to Raffensperger on the call. Raffensperger refused.
Updated
Ron DeSantis has lost his grip on second place in the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire, a new poll said on Tuesday.
Donald Trump enjoyed a 40-point lead in the survey, from Emerson College Polling. That was broadly in line with the 91-times indicted former president’s leads in most national and early voting state polls. But in New Hampshire, according to Emerson at least, the former president and potential future felon has a new closest challenger.
Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor and former Trump friend and ally, was second with 9% support, a point ahead of DeSantis, the Florida governor whose campaign is widely seen to be tanking.
Christie endorsed Trump in 2016, took a role planning his transition and stayed supportive throughout the chaotic presidency that followed. Finally splitting from Trump over his election subversion and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress, the former governor has built his second presidential campaign on taking on Trump, using his blunt and hard-nosed style to slam the former president while demanding the party move on.
New Hampshire offers Christie his best chance to make an impact on the primary, staging its vote second on the calendar, after Iowa.
The first debate of the Republican primary, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a little more than a week away. Christie has qualified to appear, promising fireworks, although it remains unclear if Trump will show up to take part.
What is the case about?
Donald Trump lost Georgia to Joe Biden in the November 2020 presidential election. After the election, Trump and his allies made an aggressive but unsuccessful push to invalidate the election results in Georgia as part of an effort to overturn his defeat nationally.
On 2 January 2021, Trump called Brad Raffensperger, the Republican who serves as Georgia’s top election official, and asked him to overturn the election. “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state,” Trump said to Raffensperger on the call. Raffensperger refused.
The call came as Trump and allies, including Rudy Giuliani, were spreading outlandish lies about the election in Georgia in order to seed doubt about the results. Most notably, Giuliani and others amplified misleading surveillance video from State Farm Arena they claimed showed election workers taking ballots out from under a table and counting them after observers left for the evening. The claim was false – counting had not stopped for the evening when the ballots were tallied.
Just as he did in other swing states, Trump convened a slate of fake electors in Georgia. The group of 16 people met discreetly in the Georgia capitol in December 2020 and signed a certificate affirming Trump’s purported victory that was sent to the National Archives. Some involved in the scheme have said they merely believed they were preserving Trump’s options amid pending litigation. The alternate slate of electors, both in Georgia and elsewhere, would later become a linchpin of Trump’s effort to overturn the election.
One of those fake electors, Cathy Latham, also was involved in a separate incident in which Trump allies obtained unauthorized access to Dominion voting equipment. On 7 January 2021, Latham helped a firm hired by the Trump campaign get access to voting equipment in Coffee county, a rural county 200 miles south-east of Atlanta. The data was uploaded to a password-protected site, where other election deniers could download it as they sought to prove the baseless allegation that Dominion voting machines had been rigged and cost Trump the election.
Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and former New York mayor, said the indictment handed up to himself, the former president and 17 other co-defendants amounted to “an affront to American democracy”.
The indictment would do “permanent, irrevocable harm to our justice system,” Giuliani said in a statement.
This indictment is an affront to American Democracy and does permanent, irrevocable harm to our justice system.
— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) August 15, 2023
It's just the next chapter in a book of lies with the purpose of framing President Donald Trump and anyone willing to take on the ruling regime.
They lied about…
An attorney for Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira entered the not-guilty plea on his behalf during a brief hearing in the Fort Pierce, Florida, federal court, on Tuesday.
De Oliveira spoke only to answer the magistrate judge’s questions, such as whether he understood the charges against him, according to AP. He appeared somber and wore dark glasses while in court, Politico reported.
The proceedings took around three minutes. Afterwards, De Oliveira and his new attorney, Donnie Murrell, walked out of the courthouse without speaking to reporters.
The trial is scheduled to begin in May in front of US district judge Aileen Cannon.
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Mar-a-Lago property manager pleads not guilty in Trump classified documents case
Carlos de Oliveira, the property manager of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, pleaded not guilty multiple obstruction-related offenses related to the former president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
De Oliveira entered a not-guilty plea in a Florida courtroom on Tuesday to four criminal counts related to an alleged attempt to delete surveillance footage from the Mar-a-Lago club. It was De Oliveira’s third appearance in the case after he twice failed to come to court with a local attorney.
De Oliveira was added as a third defendant in Trump’s complicated classified documents indictment late last month. He faces charges such as trying to obstruct justice, concealing records and documents, and making false statements to the FBI.
The case, which concerns the former president’s handling of top secret documents, also includes Waltine Nauta, Trump’s personal valet and “bodyman”. The indictment said De Oliveira helped Nauta move 30 boxes of documents, from Trump’s residence to a storage room, and asked the person responsible for surveillance at the resort to delete the footage on behalf of Trump. He was also accused of draining the resort pool to flood the rooms that contained surveillance footage.
Trump and Nauta have also pleaded not guilty. The former president has denied any wrongdoing.
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Here are some images from the news wires of the scenes outside the Fulton County courthouse, a day after the indictment of Donald Trump and 18 of his allies.
Among Republicans aiming to take Donald Trump down – the other candidates in the presidential primary field – many were slower to respond.
But the biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has polled surprisingly strongly, said:
I’d volunteer to write the amicus brief to the court myself: prosecutors should not be deciding US presidential elections, and if they’re so overzealous that they commit constitutional violations, then the cases should be thrown out and they should be held accountable.
Ramaswamy also echoed the Trump campaign in seizing on a mistake in which a version of the indictment was posted on a court website on Monday afternoon and then swiftly deleted, all while grand jury testimony continued.
“Since the four prosecutions against Trump are using novel and untested legal theories,” Ramaswamy said, “it’s fair game for him to do the same in defence: immediately file a motion to dismiss for a constitutional due process violation for publicly issuing an indictment before the grand jury had actually signed one.
He should make a strong argument on these grounds and it would send a powerful message to the ever-expansive prosecutorial police state.
Among the few candidates who have set themselves firmly against Trump, the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson said:
Over a year ago, I said that Donald Trump’s actions disqualified him from ever serving as president again. Those words are more true today than ever before.
The former congressman Will Hurd, like Hutchinson a vanishingly small presence in polling, called the Georgia indictment “another example of how the former president’s baggage will hand Joe Biden reelection if Trump is the nominee”.
Bemoaning “further evidence that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election and was ready to do anything it took to cling to power”, Hurd said the former president would “use this latest indictment as another opportunity to manipulate Americans into paying his legal bills”.
How Republicans responded to Trump’s Georgia indictment
Republicans rallied to Donald Trump’s defense after the former president was indicted on 13 criminal charges in Georgia over his attempt to overturn his defeat there by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the US House, said:
Justice should be blind, but Biden has weaponized government against his leading political opponent to interfere in the 2024 election.
Referring to Fani Willis of Fulton county, McCarthy continued
Now a radical [district attorney] in Georgia is following Biden’s lead by attacking President Trump and using it to fundraise her political career. Americans see through this desperate sham.
New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a member of House leadership, insisted Trump “had every legal right to challenge the results of the election” he conclusively lost.
She added:
This blatant election interference by the far left will not work, President Trump will defeat these bogus charges and win back the White House in 2024.
In the Senate, Ted Cruz of Texas, in 2016 Trump’s closest rival for the Republican presidential nomination, said he was “pissed”.
Cruz also called the Georgia indictment “disgraceful” and repeated McCarthy’s “weaponization” complaint – a party talking point.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump ally who briefly deserted him over the January 6 attack on Congress but swiftly came back onside, told Fox News: “The American people can decide whether they want [Trump] to be president or not.
This should be decided at the ballot box and not in a bunch of liberal jurisdictions trying to put the man in jail. They’re weaponizing the law in this country. They’re trying to take Donald Trump down.
How does an indictment work?
Donald Trump and some of his closest confidants have been indicted on state racketeering and conspiracy charges over efforts to reverse Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election in Georgia.
An indictment is a court document containing charges that were voted on by a grand jury, a group of people who decide whether a prosecutor has enough evidence to pursue criminal charges. It is a formal accusation – not a conviction.
GOP presidential candidate Will Hurd called on the Republican party to “move beyond dealing with the former president’s baggage” in a statement this morning.
“Another day, another indictment, and another example of how the former president’s baggage will hand Joe Biden reelection if Trump is the nominee,” Hurd said.
This is further evidence that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election and was ready to do anything it took to cling to power. He will use the latest indictment as another opportunity to manipulate Americans into paying his legal bills.
Another day, another indictment, and another example of how the former president’s baggage will hand Joe Biden reelection if Trump is the nominee… pic.twitter.com/gEdDkT0f7S
— Will Hurd (@WillHurd) August 15, 2023
Hillary Clinton feels ‘profound sadness’ over Trump’s many indictments
Hillary Clinton said she did not “feel any satisfaction” about Donald Trump’s extreme legal predicament, as 13 more criminal charges were leveled against the former president in Georgia on Monday night.
Instead, the former senator, secretary of state and presidential nominee said, she felt “great profound sadness”.
Clinton, 75, lost the 2016 election to Trump. On Monday, she was booked on MSNBC in part to discuss a new essay in the Atlantic, about the problem of loneliness in US society. But then news broke of Trump’s latest indictments, over his election subversion in Georgia in 2020.
“I didn’t think that [the appearance] would be under these circumstances, yet another set of indictments,” Clinton said, laughing. “It’s hard to believe,” she said.
I don’t feel any satisfaction. I feel great profound sadness that we have a former president who has been indicted for so many charges that went right to the heart of whether or not our democracy would survive.
In 2016, Trump regularly accused Clinton of wrongdoing, stoking chants of “lock her up” at his rallies. Last month, CNN unearthed comments from just before the election, in which Trump said a president under indictment and facing criminal trial would “create an unprecedented constitutional crisis” and “cripple the operations of government”.
Clinton continued:
If you stop and think about what the public evidence is … [Trump] set out to defraud the United States of America and the citizens of our nation.
He used tactics, harassment, intimidation, he made threats, he and his allies went after state officials, local officials responsible for conducting elections. Now we know they even went into voting machines in order to determine whether or not those voting machines had somehow been breached when they were the ones actually doing the breaching.
So there is a great deal already in the public record … clearly this investigation has been very thorough. But I don’t know that anybody should be satisfied with this. This is a terrible moment for our country to have a former president accused of these terribly important crimes.
Here’s a clip of Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis announcing late on Monday that a grand jury had voted to indict former president Donald Trump and 18 others over efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
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After Joe Biden won the presidential race, Donald Trump and his associates immediately went to work challenging the legitimacy of the election results, as special counsel Jack Smith outlined in his own indictment filed earlier this month.
After dozens of his election lawsuits failed, Trump then attempted to pressure state leaders to overturn Biden’s wins in key battleground states.
In Georgia specifically, Trump placed an infamous phone call to the secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, to demand that he “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s victory.
Days later, a group of Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the congressional certification of Biden’s win. Shortly after that violent day, Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis began the investigative work that culminated in a grand jury approving an indictment against Trump on Monday.
Trump continues to falsely claim the 2020 race was stolen, which has spurred more election denialism among the former president’s most fervent supporters. Voting rights leaders hope that Trump’s indictment in Georgia, as well as the federal case against him, will deter others from engaging in similar anti-democratic efforts in the future.
“The former president’s election denial conspiracies birthed a new anti-democratic movement that produced anti-voter legislation, threats to election workers, and undermined faith in democracy with lies and false allegations,” Xakota Espinoza, a spokesperson for the Georgia-based voting rights group Fair Fight, said.
This indictment should serve as a warning to future anti-voter politicians that the will and voices of Georgia voters cannot be silenced, and there is no place for election-denying conspiracy theorists in our democracy.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Tamar Hallerman, who has been reporting from the Fulton county courthouse since yesterday, says there is still plenty of law enforcement in the area.
Fulton courthouse day two. Less media but all the major networks are still here. Still plenty of law enforcement pic.twitter.com/u5YyepGX2d
— Tamar Hallerman (@TamarHallerman) August 15, 2023
Trump to hold news conference on Monday
In a Truth Social post, Donald Trump said he would present an “irrefutable report” on election fraud in Georgia on Monday at his private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Trump wrote:
Based on the results of this CONCLUSIVE Report, all charges should be dropped against me & others - There will be a complete EXONERATION! They never went after those that Rigged the Election. They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!
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All the people charged in the Trump indictment
In addition to charging Donald Trump, a grand jury in Fulton County returned an indictment on Monday night of 18 other people as co-defendants in the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Here are all the defendants:
Donald Trump
Rudy Giuliani
John Eastman
Sidney Powell
Kenneth Chesebro
Mark Meadows
Michael Roman
Jeffrey Clark
Misty Hampton
Jenna Ellis
Ray Smith
Robert Cheeley
Cathy Latham
David Shafer
Shawn Still
Trevian Kutti
Stephen Lee
Harrison Floyd
Scott Hall
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.
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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.
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.
Trump has 10 days to turn himself in after he and 18 others indicted in Georgia election case
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:
9am ET: Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.
10.20am: Biden will leave for Andrews, where he will fly to Milwaukee.
10.45am: The Senate will meet in a pro forma session.
11am: The House will meet in a pro forma session.
2pm: Biden will speak about Bidenomics at Ingeteam.
3.20pm: Biden will leave Milwaukee for Andrews.
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