Former U.S. President Donald Trump was indicted Monday for the fourth time, this time in Georgia, where prosecutors accuse him of having attempted to overturn his narrow 2020 presidential election loss by interfering with the state's vote-counting procedures.
The state indictment comes roughly two weeks after Trump, 77, who is far ahead of his rivals in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was charged by a federal grand jury with four felony counts related to efforts to overturn his loss to then Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the previous presidential election.
"The indictment alleges that...the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia's presidential election result," Fani Willis, the district attorney who oversaw the investigation, told a press conference.
Besides Trump, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who worked as his lawyer, and 17 others were charged in connection with the alleged interference attempt, according to the indictment.
The defendants tried to "accomplish the illegal goal" of allowing Trump to seize another presidential term beginning from January 2021, said Willis, who serves as district attorney of the state's Fulton County.
Trump's campaign office said in a statement released shortly before the announcement of the indictment that the investigations are taking away Trump's right to free speech and the right to "challenge a rigged and stolen election."
After being asked to comment on the view that the indictment is politically motivated due to being leveled against a presidential nominee candidate, Willis said, "I make decisions in this office based on the facts in the law. The law is completely nonpartisan."
Citing records of telephone conversations between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the official responsible for managing elections in the state, U.S. media reported that Trump urged the secretary to "find" enough votes to secure victory in the state over Biden following the November 2020 election.
After the results showed he lost to Biden by 17,779 votes in Georgia, Trump told the official he wanted him to identify 11,780 votes that could reverse the outcome, an alleged attempt to interfere with the state's vote-counting procedures, according to the reports.
His other pending trials are for a New York case stemming from a hush money payment to a porn star and for a federal case over his retention of classified national security documents at his resort in Florida.
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Trump indicted for efforts to overturn 2020 presidential election
