Starring Roles in the Trump RICO Indictment
A fourth set of criminal charges were levied against former President Donald Trump late last night after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis returned 10 indictments accusing Trump and others of trying to overturn the 2020 election. The indictment features 41 total counts, with 13 counts against Donald Trump. The core of the indictment, a racketeering charge, implicates all 19 defendants named in the indictments.
The charges involve a violation of the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, which act as an umbrella over several allegedly criminal actions the group took to advance their so-called enterprise. Georgia's RICO Act was adopted in 1980, and 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. It's important to note that the alleged scheme does not have to have been successful for a RICO charge against a defendant to result in conviction.
The indictment spells out the criminal actions upon which the the RICO charge is built and includes: making false statements; filing false documents and forgeries; impersonating officials; computer breaches; and attempts to influence witnesses. According to Fulton County Prosecutors, Trump’s team allegedly misled state officials in Georgia, organized fake electors, harassed election worker Ruby Freeman and breached election equipment in a rural Georgia County.
Several of the acts alleged to have made up the racketeering conspiracy involved states other than Georgia. At Monday’s late night press conference, Willis explained that the grand jury saw the out-of-state conduct highlighted in the indictment as being part of the plot to overturn Georgia’s 2020 results. Among the 161 alleged acts that the indictment claims were done in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy to reverse Trump’s electoral loss, were the several episodes of outreach from Trump and his advisors to state legislators in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona.
The indictment also highlights the effort to organize fake electors in Wisconsin, Arizona and other states, in addition to the coordination of an alternative slate of electors in Georgia. The elaborate pressure campaign placed on former Vice President Mike Pence by Trump and his co-defendants to disrupt Congress’ certification of the 2020 results plays a large role in the charges as well.
Donald Trump has been charged in Fulton County, Georgia, with racketeering, conspiracy to commit fraud and making false statements. The indictment spells out the details of the Trump team's activities in Georgia, a key battleground state for the US presidency that Mr Trump narrowly lost. In January 2021, Trump was recorded on a phone call asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" 11,780 votes - the number he would have needed to beat Biden in that state. The indictment outlines an alleged scheme to tamper with voting machines in one Georgia county and steal data.
The Georgia charging document also mentions an alleged scheme to submit false lists of electors, officials who make up the Electoral College that elects the president and vice-president. Mr Raffensperger released a statement following the indictment, saying, "The most basic principles of a strong democracy are accountability and respect for the Constitution and rule of law. You either have it, or you don't."
That brings the total number of criminal charges brought this year against the runaway front-runner in the GOP Presidential Primary to 91. The indictment also cites 30 un-indicted co-conspirators who allegedly participated in the RICO “enterprise.” Below is a list and quick bio of each individual who was charged alongside Trump in the Georgia RICO case last night:
Rudy Giuliani
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; three counts of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer; three counts of false statements and writings; conspiracy to commit impersonation of a public officer; two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery; two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings; and conspiracy to commit filing false documents.
Giuliani served as Trump’s personal attorney and was central to efforts by the Trump team to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in several battleground states, including Georgia, by promoting unsupported claims of vast election fraud. In December 2020, Giuliani made an appearance before the Georgia legislature, where he continued to promote claims of disproved conspiracy theories of voter fraud.
Giuliani is also being sued for defamation by two former Georgia election workers whom he accused of election fraud. In that case, Giuliani said in a legal filing he is no longer contesting that he made false and defamatory statements about those workers, but he has announced that he will argue his claims were constitutionally protected speech and did not damage the workers.
Mark Meadows
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.
Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was instrumental in Trump’s post-election efforts to overturn the election, even joining Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021. As evidence of the racketeering conspiracy, the indictment also cites a meeting between Trump, Meadows and several Michigan officials in which Trump made false statements about the election results in Michigan.
John Eastman
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer; conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer; two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery; two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings; conspiracy to commit filing false documents; filing false documents.
Eastman helped develop an extreme, “Hail Mary” plan to keep Donald Trump in office and used his access to the White House to put direct pressure on then-Vice President Mike Pence and his aides to try to subvert the election single-handedly. He also assisted Rudy Giuliani with pressuring state legislatures to appoint pro-Trump fake electors and override the will of their voters. A federal judge ruled last year that evidence showed Eastman and Trump likely committed crimes. Eastman was denoted as “Co-conspirator 2” in the federal indictment recently filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Kenneth Chesebro
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer; two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery; two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings; conspiracy to commit filing false documents.
Chesebro laid down his brazen fake electors scheme in a December 6, 2020, memo, calling on GOP electors in six swing states to cast new ballots for Trump, and send them to Washington for a January 6 congressional certification as though Trump had been elected. According to the strategy, Trump would “force” lawmakers, the media and the public to “focus on the substantive evidence of illegal election and counting activities in the six contested states,” Chesebro wrote, while former Vice President Mike Pence would then either delay the vote count or block the confirmation of the election—which Pence refused to do. Chesebro is believed to be co-conspirator 5 in the Department of Justice’s indictment of Trump.
Sidney Powell
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud; conspiracy to commit computer theft; conspiracy to commit computer trespass; conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy; conspiracy to defraud the state.
Powell, a former federal prosecutor, was one of Trump’s more extreme allies in his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results. In Georgia, she alleged Governor Brian Kemp (R) and Brad Raffensperger (R), the Georgia Secretary of State, were taking payoffs as part of that false scheme, and kept filing lawsuits alleging fraud across the battleground states, including Georgia. At a White House meeting in December 2020, Trump considered naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate the election, and Fulton County prosecutors are now focused on the role she played in an alleged breach of election data in Coffee County, Georgia.
Jenna Ellis
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.
Jenna Ellis is a lawyer who traveled with Rudy Giuliani to advance his efforts of fake election fraud in various states and also drafted memos supporting the notion that former Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to block President Biden’s win. Ellis was censured by Colorado legal officials after admitting she made 10 “misrepresentations” on television and Twitter during Trump’s fight to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.
Jeffrey Clark
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; criminal attempt to create false statements and writings.
Jeffrey Clark was a little-known Justice Department Attorney until Trump considered appointing him as acting attorney general in order to empower him to help use the DOJ to pressure state legislatures to appoint new slates of electors. Clark helped draft a letter that would have helped to promote the idea of fraud and irregularities in order to pressure state lawmakers to reconvene and consider appointing pro-Trump electors in states won by Biden. In the Jack Smith federal indictment, he was dubbed “Co-conspirator 4.”
Ray Stallings Smith III
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; three counts of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer; three counts of false statements and writings; conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer; two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings; two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery.
Smith is an Atlanta-based lawyer, who filed one of the Trump campaign’s election challenges in Georgia State Court and sent a letter to state officials raising concerns about voter fraud. He also attended the meeting of Trump’s electors in Atlanta on Dec. 14, 2020. During the meeting of the electors. Smith had indicated in recent weeks that he believed he might be a target of Fani Willis’ probe.
David Schafer
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; impersonating a public officer; two counts of first-degree forgery; three counts of false statements and writings; criminal attempt to commit filing false documents.
Schafer is the former chair of the Georgia Republican Party and one of Trump’s false electors in Georgia. Shafer helped organize and chaired the meeting of Trump’s electors on Dec. 14, 2020. He also served as an elector and stated during the meeting that the electors were meeting and voting purely to preserve their legal remedy in the event an election challenge prevailed in court.
Shawn Still
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; impersonating a public officer; two counts of first-degree forgery; two counts of false statements and writings; criminal attempt to commit filing false documents.
Still, now a Georgia State Senator, was the finance chairman of the state GOP in 2020. He helped organize the meeting of Trump’s electors on Dec. 14, 2020, and served as one of the fake electors. He allegedly stood at the door of the room in the Georgia Capitol where the group met, admitting electors after checking their IDs and initially barring the public and the media from entering the room.
Mike Roman
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer; two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery; two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings; conspiracy to commit filing false documents.
Roman was a Trump Campaign Aide who played an instrumental role in assembling and carrying out ceremonies for Trump’s false elector slates, working with aides like Chesebro to distribute forms and handle logistics of their meetings. Roman sent emails about the elector plan that were later published by the House Committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack. He circulated a detailed spreadsheet that kept track of each of the seven states that Biden had won but where he and others on the campaign were urging Trump’s electors to gather and vote on Dec. 14, 2020.
Stephen Cliffgard Lee
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; two counts of criminal attempt to commit influencing witnesses; conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings; influencing witnesses.
A suburban Chicago pastor, Lee was captured on police body-camera video when officers responded to a December 2020, 911 call at the home of Ruby Freeman, one of the Fulton County election workers accused by Giuliani and Trump of counting “suitcases” of illegal ballots at a vote-processing site in Atlanta. When Freeman refused to talk to him, Lee allegedly sought the help of Harrison Floyd, a former Illinois congressional candidate and former director of Black Voices for Trump, and Trevian Kutti, a former publicist for singer R. Kelly and associate of the rapper Kanye West, now known as Ye, to arrange a meeting with Freeman. Prosecutors sought to question Lee as part of their investigation into the harassment of Freeman, her daughter Shaye Moss and other election workers, but Lee successfully challenged his subpoena for the special-purpose grand jury.
Harrison Floyd
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings; influencing witnesses.
Floyd attempted to influence the testimony of Ruby Freeman before the grand jury. Also known as Willie Floyd III, Floyd has faced scrutiny from Georgia prosecutors for his role in helping arrange a meeting where Kutti, the former associate of Kanye West, allegedly told poll worker Freeman to confess to election fraud or she would go to jail — a meeting partially captured on police body-camera video. Floyd told Reuters that he had been asked for help in arranging the meeting with Freeman by Lee, the suburban Chicago pastor who told police he was trying “to get some truth.”
Trevian Kutti
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings; influencing witnesses.
Kutti, the former publicist for R. Kelly and associate of West, is under scrutiny for her role in allegedly trying to pressure Freeman to falsely confess to election fraud. According to court filings, Kutti told Freeman in a Jan. 4, 2021, meeting that “an armed squad” of federal officers would approach Freeman and her family within 48 hours and that she was there to offer help by connecting her to “very high-profile people that can make particular things happen … in order to defend yourself and your family.” Kutti allegedly warned Freeman that she was “a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up” and said that if she refused Kutti’s help that her “freedom and the freedom of one or more of your family members” would be disrupted, according to court filings citing police body-camera video.
Misty Hampton
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud; conspiracy to commit computer theft; conspiracy to commit computer trespass; conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy; conspiracy to defraud the state.
Hampton, also known as Misty Martin, was Coffee County’s elections supervisor during the 2020 election and its aftermath. She made a video that went viral online soon after the election, claiming to show that voting machines used in her county could be manipulated. Hampton told The Washington Post in May 2022 that she had allowed businessman Scott Hall into her office to hunt for proof of election fraud. Surveillance footage shows that Hampton was at the elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, when computer forensics contractors working with Hall and pro-Trump lawyers copied the county’s election software.
Cathy Latham
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; impersonating a public officer; first-degree forgery; false statements and writings; criminal attempt to commit filing false documents; two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud; conspiracy to commit computer theft; conspiracy to commit computer trespass; conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy; conspiracy to defraud the state.
Another one of Trump’s false electors, Latham was cited in the indictment for her involvement in an alleged scheme to help grant pro-Trump activists unauthorized access to voting equipment in Georgia’s Coffee County. Latham was Chairwoman of the Coffee County Republican Party in rural Georgia and one of the Trump fake electors who signed certificates in a bid to keep Trump in power. Records show that Latham was also involved in an effort to provide unauthorized access to election equipment in Coffee County. She spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, with Hall, who helped lead the effort. Surveillance footage shows that the following day, Latham met Hall and computer forensics contractors working for pro-Trump lawyers at Coffee County’s elections office, where the contractors copied the county’s election software. Latham appeared to introduce the contractors to county officials and posed for a selfie with one of them.
Scott Hall
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud; conspiracy to commit computer theft; conspiracy to commit computer trespass; conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy; conspiracy to defraud the state.
Hall is a Georgia bail bondsman who allegedly sought to illegally breach election equipment at the Coffee County Board of Elections Registration office. the owner of a bail bonds company, had connections with Trump’s campaign and testified about the election to a Georgia Senate subcommittee on Dec. 3, 2020. A recording depicts Hall saying in a telephone call that he had arranged for a plane to ferry people to Coffee County and accompanied them as they “went in there and imaged every hard drive of every piece of equipment” and scanned ballots. Surveillance footage has confirmed Hall was present at the Board of Elections Registration Office and Hall claims on the recorded call that he and his colleagues obtained necessary permissions from authorities.
Robert Cheeley
Charges: Violation of the Georgia RICO Act; conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer; two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery; two counts conspiracy to commit false statements and writings; conspiracy to commit filing false documents; solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer; false statements and writings; perjury.
Cheeley, an attorney in Fulton County, allegedly tried to connect Trump Attorney John Eastman to Georgia officials in an effort to assist Eastman’s efforts in overturning the election results. He testified before the Georgia Senate in December of 2020 and questioned the results of the presidential election. Cheeley also represented election skeptics who sought to review ballots and separately served as an attorney for Latham.
Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter, is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and an analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
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Amee this issue of SHERO is exactly what we need! Thank you!
It's just a matter of time before Trump and all of his MAGA supporters and enablers will face the justice they deserve for their treasonous actions!! It WILL happen and we must have faith and continue the good fight!!