Prosecutors are using a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse Donald Trump and 18 of his associates of a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in power.
His lawyers and other aides were indicted in Georgia late on Monday alongside the former president and charged with felony racketeering and numerous conspiracy charges.
They include lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro and Jeffrey Clark, as well as Trump’s White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
Ray Smith and Robert Cheeley, lawyers working for Trump in Georgia, were also indicted for allegedly lying – Smith to a Georgia Senate committee, and Cheeley to a Georgia grand jury.
Three of the 16 people who falsely claimed to be Georgia’s electoral college voters were indicted: David Shafer, then the state GOP chairman; Shawn Still, who was GOP finance chairman; and Cathleen Alston Latham.
Trump campaign official Michael Roman, who was allegedly involved in the fake electors scheme, was also indicted. Others who were charged include Stephen Lee, William Floyd, Trevian Kutti, Scott Hall and Misty Hampton.
In total, Trump faces a total of 13 felony charges in the Georgia case, according to filings made available late on Monday on the Fulton County Clerk’s Office website.
Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations (RICO) law was used to charge Trump and his associates for allegedly participating in a wide-ranging conspiracy to overturn the state’s 2020 election result.
RICO is punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison.
The first charges to result from those investigations came in June when Trump was indicted on charges he mishandled top-secret documents at his Florida estate.
The indictment alleged that Trump repeatedly enlisted aides and lawyers to help him hide records demanded by investigators and cavalierly showed off a Pentagon “plan of attack” and a classified map to members of the public.
An indictment issued in July added charges accusing Trump of asking for surveillance footage at his Mar-a-Lago estate to be deleted after FBI and Justice Department investigators visited in June 2022 to collect classified documents he took with him after leaving the White House.
