What does Donald Trump's Georgia indictment mean in Arizona?
Arizona continues to wait and see whether anyone in the Grand Canyon State will be charged in connection with Donald Trump's campaign to overturn the 2020 election, which brought about Trump's fourth indictment on Monday in Georgia.
Here's what to know about the latest charges and how they might connect to Arizona, where Trump's team conducted a similar campaign to overturn the 2020 election.
What are the charges in Georgia? Who is charged?
The indictment includes 41 charges, 13 of them against Trump. It claims violations of the state’s racketeering law and accuses Trump, his former chief of staff and lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell of being members of a “criminal organization” and “enterprise” that operated in Georgia and other states.
Nineteen people are charged with various crimes. The indictment cites 161 specific acts by Trump and his associates as part of the plan, including a January 2021 call in which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes needed to overturn his election loss. Prosecutors said the call violated a state law against asking a public official to violate their oath.
The people charged in Georgia are Trump, Giuliani, Powell, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Ken Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, Jenna Ellis, Ray Stallings Smith III, Robert Cheeley, Michael Roman, David Shafer, Shawn Tresher Still, Stephen Cliffgard Lee, Harrison William Prescott Floyd, Trevian Kutti, Cathleen Latham, Scott Hall, and Misty Hampton (a.k.a. Emily Misty Hayes).
The Donald Trump Georgia indictment: Everything you need to know in one place
What is Trump's response to the fourth indictment?
Trump's team has dismissed the indictment as political.
Trump responded to the indictment Tuesday by announcing a news conference for next week to present what he described as an “almost complete” report on alleged fraud in the 2020 election. No evidence of widespread fraud has been revealed by Trump or his legal team, despite many claims.
His legal team also attacked Georgia prosecutors for an apparent leak of charges against Trump on Monday that was retracted earlier in the day.
In a statement after the indictment was issued, Trump’s legal team said “the events that have unfolded today have been shocking and absurd, starting with the leak of a presumed and premature indictment before the witnesses had testified or the grand jurors had deliberated and ending with the District Attorney being unable to offer any explanation.”
The lawyers said prosecutors presenting their case “relied on witnesses who harbor their own personal and political interests — some of whom ran campaigns touting their efforts against the accused.”
Is there an arrest warrant for Donald Trump?
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said arrest warrants were issued and the indicted individuals have until Friday, Aug. 25, to surrender or face arrest. Fulton County officials said Trump would be treated like any other defendant, and that includes fingerprints and a mug shot.
What is racketeering?
The federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act originated in 1970 to fight organized crime by allowing prosecutors to target people at the top of criminal organizations.
States then passed their own RICO laws so prosecutors could charge multiple people involved in a conspiracy together if they were working toward a common goal.
Georgia’s RICO law, adopted in 1980, makes it a crime to participate in, acquire or maintain control of an “enterprise” through a “pattern of racketeering activity” or to conspire to do so. The alleged scheme does not have to have been successful for a RICO charge to be proven.
What is the sentence for a RICO charge?
In Georgia, it’s a felony conviction that carries a prison term of five to 20 years; a fine of $25,000 or three times the amount of money gained from the criminal activity, whichever is greater; or both a prison sentence and a fine.
Trump faces 91 criminal charges. What are Trump's other indictments?
Indictment 1: Trump became the first former president to ever face criminal charges in April when he was indicted in New York on 34 counts. Those charges all are related to falsifying business records at his private company, which prosecutors said was done to conceal hush-money payments to a porn star who said she had an extramarital affair with Trump years prior.
Indictment 2: In June, Trump became the first former president to face federal criminal charges when he was accused of hoarding classified documents. That indictment from special counsel Jack Smith was later updated to add charges related to allegedly asking for security camera footage to be deleted, and Trump faces 40 felonies in that case.
Indictment 3: Earlier this month, Smith brought forward a four-count indictment against Trump for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. No other defendants were named but Smith referenced six co-conspirators who could face charges later. The charges against Trump in that case are conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
Indictment 4: The Fulton County, Georgia indictment includes 13 charges against Trump.
The Georgia case brings the total charges Trump faces to 91.
What was the Arizona election result in 2020?
Arizona was the closest state contest for the office of president in 2020, with Trump losing to Joe Biden by 10,457 votes — a margin of about 0.3 percentage points.
The Trump campaign and supporters filed several lawsuits after the election, and it sought a new audit of the results in Maricopa County even after the standard audit showed a perfect match between the count produced by tabulating machines and a count conducted by hand.
What did Trump's team do in Arizona?
Trump's campaign to overturn the election began immediately after his 2020 loss when his lawyers and the president himself pressured the Arizona Legislature to somehow reverse the election.
The campaign included Trump lawyer Giuliani visiting the state shortly after the election and hosting a meeting at a downtown Phoenix hotel where he stirred concerns about the state election.
U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, both Arizona Republicans, attended, sitting behind Giuliani as the lawyer made outrageous claims about Arizona's election. At one point in the hours-long meeting, Giuliani suggested Arizona had 5 million "illegal aliens" living in the state, which only had a total population of 7.3 million at the time, and nowhere near that number of undocumented residents.
Its organizer, state Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, had sought approval for a meeting of the House Federal Relations Committee, which he chaired, but never received it. And the Legislature’s own lawyers said in a written opinion after the election that state law requires Arizona’s electors to cast their support with the presidential candidate who won the most votes, a provision they said lawmakers could not revise retroactively to affect the 2020 election.
Meanwhile, blocks away at the old Capitol, then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and then-Gov. Doug Ducey certified the election results, giving Arizona's 11 electoral votes to President-elect Joe Biden. Also signing were then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Brutinel.
Ducey, a Republican who campaigned with Trump, expressed confidence in the election process.
"We do elections well here in Arizona. The system is strong and that’s why I bragged on it so much," he said.
What did Trump ask Rusty Bowers?
Former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers was mentioned several times in the Georgia indictment because of the four times Trump and his associates pressured him to overturn the election.
The Mesa Republican was also asked to call a special session of the Legislature in late 2020 to pass a law that would allow the Legislature to replace Arizona's presidential electors with ones designated by Republican lawmakers.
Nov. 22, 2020: Trump and Giuliani called Bowers about the Nov. 3 election and asked him to appoint the presidential electors, which Bowers did not have the authority to do.
Dec. 1, 2020: Bowers and then-Senate President Karen Fann met with Giuliani and Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, and Giuliani again made false statements about the election and asked lawmakers to call a special legislative session. They didn't.
Dec. 25, 2020: Trump called Bowers and asked him to appoint GOP electors from Arizona.
Jan. 4, 2020: Trump lawyer John Eastman called and asked Bowers again to appoint GOP electors for Trump.
In all instances, Bowers refused, saying such actions would violate the oath he took to uphold the U.S. and Arizona constitutions.
What happened with Arizona's fake electors?
Republicans in seven states where Democrat Joe Biden won the election, including Arizona, falsely signed documents in 2020 in an attempt to thwart the Electoral College. The federal indictment of Trump said this was part of a criminal conspiracy aimed at keeping him in office.
The states where fake electors submitted documents were Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The fake electors in Arizona were: Tyler Bowyer, an executive with Turning Point USA and a committeeman for the Republican National Committee; Nancy Cottle, who chaired the Arizona Trump electors; state Sen. Jake Hoffman; state Sen. Anthony Kern; Jim Lamon, a failed U.S. Senate candidate; Robert Montgomery of the Cochise County Republican Committee; Samuel Moorhead of the Gila County Republican Party; Loraine Pellegrino, the secretary of the Arizona Trump electors; Greg Safsten, former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party; Kelli Ward, the state GOP chair at the time; and Michael Ward, her husband and a GOP activist.
The Michigan electors were each charged with eight felonies and released on $1,000 bonds.
At least eight of the 16 fake electors in Georgia have been offered immunity.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes' office has said Arizona's electors are under investigation, and has declined comment.
Read the Fulton County indictment online
A PDF of the Georgia indictment can be viewed here:
How is Trump doing in the polls?
Trump continues to lead in polls for the Republican primary election next year, but his criminal charges are affecting his overall ratings among voters, according to data released by FiveThirtyEight.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average of the primary, Trump has an advantage of 38.7 percentage points over his nearest competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. That’s up from late March, prior to his indictment in New York.
In the two weeks after the June indictment dealing with classified documents, Trump’s favorability rating among Republicans fell 1.8 percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight. Trump’s favorability rating among all adults fell a few points to -14.8. The net favorability rating is the percentage of people giving a favorable rating minus those with an unfavorable rating, hence the negative number.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Donald Trump's Georgia indictment: What it means for Arizona?
