Former President Donald Trump and a network of his allies are accused of operating a criminal enterprise to overturn the 2020 election in a sweeping 41-count indictment brought by a Georgia grand jury.
The indictment late Monday led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis − the fourth to target Trump spanning federal and state courts − takes aim not just at the president but 18 co-defendants.
Trump decried the charges as “another witch hunt” on his social media platform Truth Social.
But the case poses an especially serious threat because, unlike Trump’s two federal indictments, a conviction in Georgia state court could not be subject to a future presidential pardon.
Here are seven takeaways from Trump’s latest charges.
Trump accused of operating ‘criminal organization’ under RICO
The key distinction of the Georgia indictment is that Willis charged Trump under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, a law that is historically used to take down drug operations and gangs.
It allows a prosecutor to combine multiple suspected crimes into one charge: racketeering.
RICO:Trump charged in Georgia under law designed to nab Mafia bosses. What it means for case.
Georgia prosecutors argue Trump and his allies constituted a “criminal organization” whose members engaged in a wide range of criminal activity − including providing false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, forgery and computer theft − with the goal of overturning the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia and other states won by Joe Biden.
Federal prosecutors have used RICO to take down Mob bosses and, more recently, wealthy parents who paid a ringleader to fake their children’s credentials in the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal.
But Georgia’s RICO statute is much broader. State prosecutors can cite alleged crimes in other states − and the enterprise doesn’t have to be successful to bring charges. The only bar to bring RICO charges is an enterprise that commits “two or more” criminal acts to carry out the conspiracy.
Willis has a reputation for turning to RICO, including in a gang-related case this year against Young Thug, an Atlanta rapper. The latest target: a former president and his associates.
Giuliani, Meadows among 18 co-defendants
Because Willis is using a RICO framework − with Trump at the center of the operation − the district attorney has also charged Trump allies accused of participating in the enterprise to help the president overturn the election.
Including the names of other big players involved in the alleged conspiracy marks a major difference from the other cases Trump faces. In federal conspiracy charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith in the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 case, co-conspirators remain unidentified.
Among the 18 allies facing charges in the Georgia indictment are Rudy Giuliani, who was Trump’s personal attorney, and Mark Meadows, who was White House chief of staff during the 2020 election. In the Smith indictment, Giuliani is identified only as “Co-Conspirator 1.”
The Fulton County district attorney’s office says Meadows acknowledged that he attended a meeting with Trump and others on Dec. 21, 2020, to talk about claims of voter fraud in Georgia. The next day, prosecutors say, Meadows traveled to Cobb County, Georgia, to observe an election audit but was rebuffed by local election officials who said he was not allowed inside.
Giuliani, a pioneer of using RICO laws as a former federal prosecutor, is being accused of peddling false statements about the Georgia election outcome, which is illegal under state law.
Fake electors and false statements to Georgia Legislature
Among the charges, the enterprise is accused of falsifying documents to recruit individuals to meet on Dec. 14, 2020, to cast false Electoral College votes declaring Trump the winner of Georgia, which Biden won by 11,779 votes.
The “fake electors” scheme, which Trump allies carried out in other battleground states won by Biden, is also at the center of the special counsel case against the former president.
Georgia prosecutors argue the plan was to present competing slates of Trump electors to Vice President Mike Pence to “disrupt and delay” the counting of electoral votes during the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session of Congress.
Willis also cited three hearings before the Georgia Legislature in December 2020 in which Giuliani and other Trump associates are accused of making false statements about voter fraud to lawmakers to persuade them to reject lawful electoral votes.
Trump’s phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state
The Georgia indictment has a sprawling 161 incidents that prosecutors say demonstrate Trump’s attempt to steal the Georgia vote.
Few will be as scrutinized as the former president’s infamous telephone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2020 in which he pressured the election chief to “find” the 11,780 votes needed for him to win the state.
Trump implied Raffensperger could face legal trouble if he didn’t comply, and the former president threatened political blowback.
The phone call, a recording of which was leaked and played across the country, was “enough to raise eyebrows and even cause grave concern that it was already necessary to at least preliminarily look at other facts,” Willis told USA TODAY in an interview in February 2022.
The crux of that evidence will come down to a legal joust over whether Trump was acting in his official capacity as president. Trump attorney John Lauro, for instance, said in an interview Aug. 7 that the phone call “wasn’t a threat” and that his client was entitled to petition the state.
“It was an aspirational ask,” Lauro said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Harassment of Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman
Another crime cited in the RICO charge is the harassment of Ruby Freeman, a Georgia election worker who became a top target of Trump supporters as the former president challenged the vote.
The indictment accuses several of the defendants including Trump of falsely accusing Freeman of committing election crimes to advance their claims of voter fraud.
“In furtherance of this scheme, members of the enterprise traveled from out of state to harass Freeman, intimidate her, and solicit her to falsely confess to election crimes that she did not commit,” the complaint reads.
Freeman and her daughter, fellow election worker Shaye Moss, gave emotional testimony last year to the House special committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot about death threats they have received. “There is nowhere I feel safe,” Freeman said. “Nowhere.”
Last month, Giuliani conceded he made false statements against Freeman in a filing from his attorneys in a lawsuit brought by Freeman. But he did not concede that his falsehoods caused her any harm.
How is Kanye West’s ex-publicist involved?
It wouldn’t be a Trump case without some celebrity connection.
Among the people listed in the RICO case is Trevian C. Kutti, who at one time was a publicist for R&B artist R. Kelly and later hip-hop artist Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, who was publicly cozy with Trump at one point.
Kutti, who is based in Chicago, is accused of trying to intimidate Freeman.
The Georgia indictment says Kutti went to Freeman’s home demanding she admit to election fraud. It claims Kutti intended to mislead Freeman by saying she “needed protection and by purporting to offer her help, with intent to influence her testimony.”
Stolen computer from Dominion Voting
In a separate count of the indictment, Trump attorney Sidney Powell and other associates are accused of unlawful possession of ballots and computer theft for using a computer in Coffee County with the intention of taking data from the machine.
The computer was the property of Dominion Voting Systems, a voting software company that Trump falsely accused of rigging voting machines for Biden.
The indictment also cites computer invasion of privacy, computer trespassing and conspiracy to defraud the state as other offenses related to the stolen computer.
Fox News in April agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a lawsuit from Dominion for broadcasting falsehoods about the company’s voting machines after the election.
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
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