Donald J. Trump is currently facing a total of 80 felony indictments. That includes 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in New York, 42 counts centering on theft of classified documents and conspiracy from a federal grand jury in Miami, and four charges of conspiracy and obstruction connected to attempts to overturn the 2020 election issued by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C.
That total is expected to grow substantially this week as Trump faces new charges in Georgia. And, based on warnings that have already been issued, he’s likely to be far from alone. As many as 20 members of Trump’s 2020 campaign staff, White House staff, legal team, Republican Party officials, and assorted Trump allies could face charges of their own.
More than a month ago, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis warned local officials to be standing by for possible problems during the first 18 days of August. Barricades have already been in place for more than two weeks around the county courthouse to guard against potential disruption by Trump supporters. Willis has waited until the end of that period, but it looks as if the final actions in the Georgia case against Trump and his team are about to drop.
One of several morning blasts from Trump
Considering that Trump made efforts to overturn the legal outcome of the election in multiple states, the level of legal activity in Georgia may seem unusually high. But there’s a reason.
There may be no other state where Trump’s actions were so obvious, so odious, and so clearly illegal. Again and again in Georgia, Trump went beyond the limits of speech into threats and intimidation, and his associates made repeated efforts to strong-arm officials or falsify the results, supporting those efforts with a thick slice of lies. Trump’s illegal actions in Georgia still haven’t stopped.
As the only state in the Southeast to flip to President Joe Biden in 2020, Georgia was the target of particular attention and vitriol from Trump in the weeks following the election. That included Trump’s infamous call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he threatened Raffensperger with “criminal consequences” if he failed to “find” the votes necessary to overturn the outcome in the state. Trump is also known to have made calls to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, state legislators, and a state investigator.
Trump also attacked Georgia officials and election workers by name, leading to multiple instances of harassment, angry confrontations, and death threats. He used public appearances and social media statements to repeat lies about the election, including using these messages to directly pressure Kemp to reverse the outcome of the vote.
But Trump’s efforts to bully state officials at all levels were just a small part of the operation in Georgia. The full-court press applied by Trump, his staff, and associates is directly connected to why Willis is reportedly considering racketeering charges that connect “a pattern of crimes.”
In addition to Trump, there are indications that as many as 20 other people may face charges in Georgia. That potentially includes Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, and Jeffrey Clark; White House staff including former chief of staff Mark Meadows; federal, state, and local Republican Party officials including Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel; and Trump allies such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, who made his own call to Raffensperger.
In addition to the phone calls and harassment, Georgia was one of seven states where Trump’s team leveraged connections with state and county Republican officials to create a slate of “false electors” who sent a letter claiming to be the duly elected representatives of the vote in their state. This was part of the larger plan created by Eastman to generate chaos on Jan. 6 that would allow Trump to contest the results of the election—a plan that may also result in charges against Eastman, those false electors, other members of Trump’s campaign staff, and state party officials who took part in the scheme.
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Georgia is also one of the states where Trump and his staff vilified voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems. That includes both Giuliani making false statements about the machines switching votes from Trump to Biden, and—in an action that seems almost guaranteed to result in a string of charges—using local party officials and county sheriffs to gain physical access to voting machines. Over the weekend, it became known that prosecutors have texts directly tying Trump’s campaign to the efforts to break into these machines.
Giuliani is also likely to face charges related to his infamous appearance before the Georgia Legislature, where he repeatedly made false claims about Dominion and specific campaign workers. This includes claiming that Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss had exchanged a data drive “like vials of heroin or cocaine” when the only thing the Black mother and daughter had actually exchanged was a breath mint. Giuliani has already admitted to lying to settle a defamation case brought by the two women, but that’s unlikely to shield him from additional charges from Willis.
Giuliani was just one of several Trump allies who testified at that state hearing, where they also made false claims about a box of votes being pulled from under a table, about thousands of dead people voting, and about undocumented immigrants and convicted felons voting. Anybody who gave this testimony may now be subject to charges connecting them to attempts to interfere with the election. Eastman was one of those who spoke at the hearing, where he produced claims that as many as 66,000 people were allowed to vote despite being younger than 18—a number that seems to have been pulled from … nowhere involving facts.
Although there is some indication that Meadows may have provided testimony against Trump in the federal case, that seems unlikely to protect him against charges in Fulton County. That’s because Meadows didn’t just make phone calls attempting to get officials to change the outcome, and he didn’t just spread false information. He physically went to Cobb County and attempted to get into the room where election workers were auditing mail-in ballots.
Meadows didn’t get his hands on the ballots, but he did get a face-to-face meeting with the deputy secretary of state and with a state investigator to make another push for throwing out many of the mail-in ballots based on supposed changes in signatures. During that meeting, Meadows got Trump on the phone so that he could again use his power to maximize pressure.
Clark also got himself neck-deep in Georgia election shenanigans. The man who was at the center of the scheme to replace the acting attorney general so he could help Trump seize control of voting machines jumped the gun in the Peach State by drafting a letter to state legislators claiming that the Justice Department had found significant flaws in the state’s election results and asking that the legislators convene a special session to choose new electors. That claim was a pure lie, and almost certain to get Clark some charges of his own.
Compared to what has happened so far, Georgia could provide a blizzard of charges against a huge swath of those connected to Trump. It could also serve as a model for similar actions in other states.
It’s clear from the string of whines originating from Trump’s social media accounts on Monday that the pending indictments in Georgia are making him sweat. He’s even getting in some last-minute witness harassment. He’s sweating for good reason. Not only does Willis seem to have all the evidence she could possibly need, but not even a president can pardon state-level charges.
Indictments could come as soon as today, though they are more likely to be issued on Tuesday or Wednesday following some final testimony from witnesses. In May, Willis issued a letter to the chief judge of the court asking that he be ready for possible indictments the weeks of Aug. 7 and Aug. 14.
It looks as if she is right on schedule.