Trump trashes ‘corrupt’ District Attorney Fani Willis and vows report countering Georgia indictment
Former President Donald Trump Tuesday blasted Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as “corrupt” and vowed to release an “irrefutable report” countering his sprawling Georgia election interference indictment.
Minutes after Willis unveiled the indictment, Trump trashed the Atlanta prosecutor as “out of control and very corrupt.”
He later promised to hold a news conference next Monday to present a comprehensive response to the indictment of himself and 18 co-defendants on sweeping racketeering charges.
“All charges should be dropped against me & others,” Trump wrote on his social media platform. “There will be a complete EXONERATION!”
Trump and the co-defendants were given until Friday, Aug. 25 to surrender to authorities in Atlanta.
The former president is accused of leading a wide-ranging plot to steal the 2020 election and stay in power, starting with a brazen effort to overturn his loss in the battleground state of Georgia. He now faces four criminal indictments, including 91 counts in two states and two separate federal charges.
Despite the charges, Trump remains the dominant front-runner in the Republican presidential race, with most polls showing him at about 50% support.
There was no immediate word on whether Trump will face a separate arraignment or will appear together with all or most of his 18 allies who were also indicted on various aspects of the alleged scheme.
Among the other defendants are big-name Trump allies including Rudy Giuliani, ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and right-wing law professor John Eastman.
The case was assigned by random drawing to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who was appointed to the bench by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp only earlier this year.
The so-called RICO charge that all the defendants face carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years behind bars upon conviction.
Neither the U.S. president nor Georgia governor has the authority to pardon those convicted of crimes in the state, raising the potential stakes for Trump and all the other co-defendants.
Some legal analysts believe that could make it more likely that Trump’s cronies will turn on him and agree to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for lenient treatment.
The Georgia case covers some of the same ground as Trump’s recent indictment in Washington, D.C., including attempts he and his allies made to disrupt the electoral vote count at the Capitol.
But Willis takes a dramatically different legal tack than special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the federal probe.
The charging document, in language conjuring up the seedy underworld of mob bosses and gang leaders, accuses the former president, his former chief of staff, Trump’s attorneys and the ex-New York mayor of being members of a “criminal organization” and “enterprise” that operated in Georgia and other states.
Among the 161 acts detailed in the indictment is the shocking Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump demanded Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “find” the 11,780 votes needed to overturn his election loss. That call, prosecutors said, violated a Georgia law against soliciting a public official to violate their oath.
The call sparked a nearly two-year probe by a Georgia grand jury that concluded with a report last January recommending the sweeping charges.
A separate grand jury voted to indict Trump and the others Monday, acting a day earlier than had been widely expected.
Trump slammed prosecutors for an apparent clerical error that led to the Trump charging document being inadvertently briefly posted on a Fulton County court web site hours before the actual indictment.