When Donald Trump was indicted on racketeering charges over his attempt in Georgia to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, he wasn’t alone. Charged along with him were 18 alleged allies, including some names that have long been associated with Trump.
Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s last chief of staff, was charged along with Trump and 17 others on Monday night with allegedly violating Georgia’s anti-racketeering law in connection with Trump’s efforts to get state officials to overturn President Joe Biden’s win there in the 2020 presidential election. He also faces a charge of soliciting a violation of oath by a public officer.
The latter charge stemmed from Meadows’ participation in an infamous post-election phone call in which Trump tried to persuade Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to rustle up extra votes for Trump, despite a recount that showed Trump had lost to Biden.
Meadows had dodged being charged in any of the three previous criminal cases brought against the former president. Trump has so far been charged in New York, for allegedly falsifying business records, and twice in federal court: once for his alleged mishandling of classified documents and once for alleged conspiracy in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
In her news conference late Monday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis cautioned that all defendants were presumed innocent until proven guilty. An email message left with the Conservative Partnership Institute, where Meadows works, was not immediately returned.
Trump has dismissed both the federal and Georgia election cases as criminalizing his criticisms of the election.
Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina, has long been seen as a key figure in Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, an initiative that led to the 45th president facing federal charges in Washington as well.
As Trump’s top staffer, Meadows appears to have acted as both a proxy for Trump in some ways ― he visited Georgia’s signature match audit as it was being conducted, for example ― and also a clearinghouse for others working to reverse Trump’s defeat.
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He released hundreds of text messages to the congressional committee that looked into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol. A technical adviser to the panel, Denver Riggleman, described the texts as a “roadmap to an attempted coup.”
Despite his role, Meadows was not charged in the federal Jan. 6 case and even wrote a book about his time in the White House, “The Chief’s Chief.” Meadows testified before the federal grand jury but said nothing publicly about his appearance, a stance that led to some speculation that he may have decided to cooperate in that case.
Several members of the former president’s legal team were also swept up in the Fulton County indictment.
They included Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer and former New York City mayor; John Eastman, who is considered one of the chief architects of the plan to challenge Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results, and Trump campaign lawyers Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell.
All of the lawyers were charged with violating the anti-racketeering law, but the number of other charges they faced varied widely. Giuliani, who became the public face of Trump’s effort to overturn his election loss, saw the most charges, with 14, while Ellis saw the least, with two.
Among Giuliani’s charges were solicitations of violations of public oaths, conspiracy and false statements.
Also indicted were former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, campaign lawyer Ray Smith III, campaign staffer Michael Roman, lawyer Robert Cheeley, former Coffee County GOP official Cathy Latham, former Coffee County election supervisor Misty Hampton, former state legislators David Shafer and Shawn Still, former music publicist Trevian Kutti, pastor Stephen Lee, former mixed martial arts fighter Harrison William Prescott Floyd and bail bondsman Scott Hall.
All those indicted have been given a deadline of noon on Aug. 25 to voluntarily surrender themselves, Willis said at a news conference on Monday night.