Donald Trump has been indicted in Georgia as part of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ 2020 election interference probe, marking the former president’s second state case and his fourth criminal prosecution overall.
He’s also charged in the New York state hush money case, as well as federally in Washington, D.C., related to his scheme to overturn the 2020 election, and in Florida regarding his alleged unlawful retention of classified documents and obstruction.
Willis’ office obtained the indictment Monday from a state grand jury after previously presenting evidence to a separate special grand jury that investigated the matter and recommended charges but wasn’t empowered to vote on them like this regular grand jury could.
There’s overlap between special counsel Jack Smith’s 2020 election investigation and the Georgia probe. Among the evidence cited in Smith’s Washington indictment was Trump’s infamous call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” him votes. People can legally be prosecuted on both the state and federal levels for the same conduct. But presidents can’t pardon state crimes and, in Georgia, pardons are handled by a board that requires applicants to have completed their sentence at least five years before even applying.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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