Trump indicted for the fourth time, for election interference in Georgia

Donald Trump has been indicted again on Monday, for the fourth time in four months and in what seems the most detailed case so far. A grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, has given the green light to file charges against the president and 18 of his advisers, for a total of 41 charges related to attempts to alter the results of the 2020 election in that state, which the former president lost by less than 12,000 votes.

The charges range from falsifying official documents to attempting to pressure an official to betray his oath of office. Among those indicted alongside Trump are some of his top aides, from his former chief of staff Mark Meadows to his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Also included is Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Ministry official who was involved in attempts to manipulate the voting results.

These charges, the most extensive so far in Trump's legal cases, are added to the three already pending to complicate what is already promised as an electoral campaign in which the Republican's judicial cases will be a key factor. They are the result of a two-and-a-half-year investigation led by Fulton County Prosecutor Fani Willis, a Democrat.

Trump has been quick to react. Shortly after the grand jury delivered its verdict, but before the content of the accusations was made public, he posted on his social network, Truth, a statement to attack the prosecutor, as he has done in previous cases against those who have filed charges: "the radical Democratic prosecutor Fani Willis is a militant to death who campaigns and raises funds on a platform to prosecute President Trump for these charges. false," he says, before accusing the lawyer of seeking "maximum interference" in the 2024 presidential campaigns.

The case will be added to the three already dragging the former tenant of the White House and current Republican candidate to return to the presidency. The first indictment came in March, when the Manhattan prosecutor charged him with accounting falsification in connection with payments to buy a porn actress's silence about her alleged sexual relationship. In June came the second: special prosecutor Jack Smith held him responsible for violating the Espionage Act by keeping classified documents from his presidential period without permission in his private residence in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. On the 2nd, Smith again filed charges against him, this time in the most serious case so far: the alleged interference of the president in the attempts to alter the 2020 election results.

Classified documents that Donald Trump allegedly stored in a bathroom of his Florida residence after his departure from the White House.HANDOUT (AFP)

The Georgia case ties in with that of the federal special prosecutor, but sticks to attempts to change the results at the polls in that state. Voters supported the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden – the winner of those US elections – in November 2020, although only by 11,779 votes. In the Jan. 2 phone call, Trump is heard saying that "I just want to find 11,780 votes," one more than Biden's garner.

"Incorrect data"

The then outgoing president – he had 18 days left in the White House – begs, flatters, insists and warns Raffensperger, always with the argument he has maintained since his electoral defeat: that the real winner was him and the official data are the result of an immense tongo. The official did not agree. Biden's victory had been legitimate. "The data you handle is incorrect," Raffensperger retorts to Trump in that talk.

The now presidential candidate maintains that he only made "a perfect call of protest" when phoning the official, as he said Monday in Truth, his social network. The tycoon encourages again the argument that has been outlined as he has received indictment after indictment and that has become the basis of his electoral strategy: that all his judicial problems are part of a conspiracy of Democratic politicians and related media to prevent him from returning to the White House and can become a champion of ordinary Republicans. "Why wasn't this case filed two and a half years ago? Electoral interference!" he protests.

In addition to the phone call to Raffensperger, Willis has also investigated illicit computer access to electronic voting machine systems in a rural Georgia county and a plot to use fake voters in an attempt to capture votes from that swing state, which at the time was shaping up to be decisive for the national outcome of the election as well as defeating Biden.

Rejecting false conspiracies

The two witnesses who have publicly confirmed that they had been summoned to testify are journalist George Chidi and former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan. The former senior official, like the rest of the state's top hierarchy, has been very blunt in rejecting Trump's false conspiracy theories about the results of the 2020 election. A position supported by their voters in a state that was once pure Republican and that in the last 15 years has been oscillating to more Democratic positions. Gov. Brian Kemp, one of the Republicans who has been most vocal in dismissing fraud, was re-elected by a comfortable majority in last November's midterm elections.

Although at first glance the case seems more limited than, for example, the one presented by Smith around the great electoral hoax of 2020, an indictment in Georgia could entail additional legal complications for the former president.

Trump has hinted that, if he becomes president again, he would proclaim a self-pardon to close his cases. Or he could appoint a like-minded person at the head of the Justice Department to shelve the federal charges. But in the case of Georgia, being a state case, it could do neither.

"Not only could he not pardon himself, but the pardon process in Georgia means that Governor Kemp couldn't either. There is a panel [that decides the] pardons. It's a more complicated process," former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti told CNN on Saturday. "I also couldn't close the investigation in the same way."

Follow all the international information on Facebook and Twitter, or in our weekly newsletter.