Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis announced that arrest warrants have been issued for Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants and gave them a strict deadline to turn themselves in.
The Fulton County district attorney made the announcement after a grand jury handed up 13 felony charges against Mr Trump for his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state.
These charges include RICO, conspiracy to commit forgery, filing false documents, Solicitation of Violation of Oath by Public Officer and more.
In addition, 18 Trump associates have also been indicted, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.
“Subsequent to the indictment, as is the normal process in Georgia law, the grand jury issues arrest warrants for those who were charged,” she told reporters on Monday night. “I am giving the defendants the opportunity to voluntarily surrender no later than noon on Friday the 25th day of August 2023.”
Ms Willis, who has been mocked by the former president in the build-up to his fourth indictment, described what she had investigated as “a criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of 2020 presidential election in this state.”
She then stated that the defendants had the “illegal goal of allowing Donald J Trump to seize the presidential term of office beginning on January 20 2021.”
And she added: “All elections in our nation are administered by the states which are given the responsibility of ensuring a fair process and an accurate counting of the votes….the states’ role in this process is essential to the functioning of our democracy.”
She then said that Georgia had a legal process for anyone who wanted to challenge election results to do so in courts in the state.
“The indictment alleges that rather than abide by Georgia’s legal process for election challenges the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result.”
Ms Willis said that she is seeking a trial date in the case “within the next six months.”
“This office will be submitting a proposed scheduling order within this week. However, that will totally be at the discretion of the judge,” Ms Willis said.
And she added that she wanted to try all of the 19 defendants together in the case.
