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What is Georgia’s grand jury investigating against Donald Trump?

Former President Donald Trump during day three of the LIV Golf Invitational – Bedminster at Trump National Golf Club on August 13, 2023, in Bedminster, New Jersey. — AFP

Former US president Donald Trump is being investigated by a grand jury for his alleged role in overturning 2020 election results in the state of Georgia which he lost to his rival Democrat candidate Joe Biden.

The probe by a 26-member jury commenced when a phone conversation between Donald Trump and Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on 2 January 2021 was leaked in which the former president asked the official to “find 11,870 votes”.

Former US president and Republican candidate for 2024 Donald Trump has been indicted for the fourth time Tuesday by a grand jury in Georgia in the 2020 election subversion case.

According to the indictment, Trump along with 18 others was “illegally conspiring and attempting to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise” after his loss in Georgia, CNN reported

The accusations include making false statements and soliciting state legislatures, and high-ranking state officials, fabricating and disseminating false electoral college documents, intimidating poll workers, soliciting Justice Department officials, soliciting Mike Pence when he was vice president, illegally tampering with election machinery, and obstructionist acts.

The indictment states: “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 favour 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.”

Along with the people charged, the indictment also named 30 other unindicted co-conspirators.

According to the accusations made by the prosecution, the company “engaged in various related criminal activities including, but not limited to, false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, forgery, filing false documents, influencing witnesses, computer theft, computer trespass, computer invasion of privacy, conspiracy to defraud the state, acts involving theft, and perjury.”

Police officers and media members surround the Lewis R. Slaton Courthouse ahead of an expected indictment of former US President Donald Trump in Atlanta, Georgia on August 14, 2023. — AFP
Police officers and media members surround the Lewis R. Slaton Courthouse ahead of an expected indictment of former US President Donald Trump in Atlanta, Georgia on August 14, 2023. — AFP

The Republican candidate has repeatedly denied all the charges against him calling them politically motivated to throw him out of the race against the Democrat Joe Biden.

Donald Trump was the US president from 2017 to 2021 and is now campaigning for the White House once again, leading a crowded field of candidates.

Trump has proclaimed his innocence and called the cases a “witch hunt” against him.

While his interview with Fox News on July 19, Trump said that the Department of Justice “has become a weapon for Democrats.”

He also criticised Jack Smith calling him a “deranged prosecutor”.

“Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign. Prosecutorial Misconduct!” Trump said on Truth Social.

According to the case in Georgia, the former president pressurised legislators and spread false claims of fraud, telling them to decertify the state’s electoral college results.

The allies of Donald Trump also created a false and illegitimate way to elect him by having fake members of the Electoral College cast their votes for the twice-impeached president in Georgia, rather than Biden.

The allegations also indicate that the billionaire former president’s attornies also collaborated with a data company to copy critical data from election systems in Coffee County, Georgia.

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