By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas | Yes, him. The familiar guy whose noggin we see from behind in photo above. One Donald J. Trump. He was indicted again yesterday, for the fourth time, this time in Georgia. Yes, it was expected. Had been expected for months now.
But now we know the particulars.
This indictment pointedly alleges Trump orchestrated a criminal enterprise, committing more than a dozen felonies, as he tried and failed to overturn his defeat in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. According to an indictment handed up Monday by a Fulton County grand jury, the filing also lodged charges against 18 of Trump’s allies. They presumably helped him spread false conspiracy theories and repeatedly strong-arm top state officials as he tried to cling to power.
The 41-count, 98-page indictment said Trump and his co-defendants refused to accept the fact that Trump lost in Georgia. But "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."
It marks the second time this August the former president has been indicted for interfering in the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Pundits are noting that the Georgia case is far different because it also charges a large cast of alleged accomplices – from former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former state Republican Party chairman David Shafer.
Also charged: state Sen. Shawn Still; attorneys John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Bob Cheeley, Ray Smith III and Kenneth Chesebro; former assistant U.S. attorney general Jeffrey Clark; former Coffee County GOP chairwoman Cathy Latham; Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall; former Coffee County elections director Misty Hampton; GOP strategist Michael Roman; publicist Trevian Kutti; Illinois pastor Stephen Cliffguard Lee; and Harrison Floyd, who briefly ran for a suburban Atlanta U.S. House seat before serving as director of Black Voices for Trump.
These charges, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, are the culmination of a 2 1/2-year criminal investigation launched by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis shortly after Trump’s leaked Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Brad Raffensperger, during which he asked the Georgia secretary of state to “find” him 11,780 votes.
This is a biggie.
Trump has called it part of a government witch hunt, and lately has been saying it's just a way to keep him out of the 2024 presidential election. That's a farfetched accusation, but he keeps making it.
Lindsey Graham, the Republican U.S. Senator from South Carolina, yesterday went on FOX News to say the case should be dropped. "The American people should decide at the ballot box whether Donald Trump is president or not," Graham said.
Irony of irony, Lindsey.
The thing is voters decided it in 2020...and Trump refused to accept the result...
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