The most sweeping count Trump faces in the indictment is the state version of a federal anti-racketeering statute that allows prosecutors to charge a number of people they believe are involved in a complex scheme to commit crimes. In effect, it lets prosecutors combine a number of different, seeming disconnected crimes if they believe these are committed as part of one overall enterprise.
While not all of the defendants in the case face the same charges, all 19 of them are facing this particular count, which alleges a web of wrongdoing carried out over nearly two years, beginning immediately after the 2020 presidential election.
The indictment alleges that this group “refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.” This conspiracy, the indictment continues, was carried out in Fulton County, Ga., where the group was charged, as well as other states.
According to the indictment, this group and more than two dozen others who were not indicted carried out a host of criminal actions to support this effort, among them conspiring to defraud the state, perjury, impersonating a public officer and filing false documents. The indictment alleges that 161 distinct acts were all part of a broader criminal effort.
