Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis gave former President Donald Trump and the 18 other defendants who were charged Monday until noon on Aug. 25 to surrender.
Ms. Willis announced the surrender date in a press conference on Monday evening after a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury handed down charges against the former president. Meanwhile, the district attorney said that a trial would likely take place within the next six months, which would occur in the midst of GOP primary elections.
“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and 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 to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states,” the indictment says.
Under the indictment, President Trump and the other defendants are each charged with one count of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and allegedly engaged in “criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia—and elsewhere—to accomplish the illegal goal” of keeping the former president in office.
The 18 other individuals listed in the indictment include Rudy Guiliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, Jenna Ellis, Ray Stallings Smith III, Robert Cheeley, Michael Roman, David Shafer, Shawn Micah Tresher Still, Stephen Cliffgard Lee, Harrison William Prescott Floyd, Trvian C. Kutti, Sidney Powell, Cathy Latham, Scott Hall, and Misty Hampton.
Ms. Willis, in the conference, claimed that the charges against President Trump and the others were not politically motivated. “I make decisions in this office based on the facts in the law,” she said. “The law is completely nonpartisan. That’s how decisions are made in every case to date.”
However, a statement from the Trump campaign said otherwise, accusing the district attorney of having a partisan animus against him. That statement, meanwhile, accused Ms. Willis of engaging in election interference.
