Trump charged with racketeering by Fulton County grand jury: Live updates

“Subsequent to the indictment, as is the normal process in Georgia law, the grand jury issues arrest warrants for those who were charged,” she told reporters on Monday night. “I am giving the defendants the opportunity to voluntarily surrender no later than noon on Friday the 25th day of August 2023.”

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has responded to Donald Trump’s claim that he has a “Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia” that will lead to his “complete EXONERATION” of the charges against him.

Mr Kemp wrote on X: “The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen.”

“For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward — under oath — and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair and will continue to be as long as I am governor,” he continued.

“The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be our focus,” the governor concluded.

Vaughn Hillyard of NBC News has flagged an answer Donald Trump gave him over the weekend before the indictment dropped about his allies in Georgia — 18 of whom are now his co-defendants.

The former president began his response with the words: “Many of the allies I don’t know…”

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is not commenting on the Fulton County indictment of former president Donald Trump.

A spokesperson said: “Given the governor was subpoenaed in this case in November of 2022, our office will not be commenting further.”

A sprawling indictment targeting Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn election results in the state of Georgia includes 18 co-defendants, including his former White House chief of staff, several Trump-allied attorneys, and the so-called “fake” electors who joined a scheme to subvert the outcome.

All are charged under the state’s anti-racketeering statute, marking one of the largest criminal cases against the former president and his allies for alleged crimes committed while he was in office in an attempt to remain in power at whatever cost.

“I’m certainly not going to comment on that,” White House spokesperson Oliver Dalton tells reporters when asked about the Trump Georgia indictment.

Ms Dalton would also not be drawn on whether the news of the indictment was overshadowing the administration’s Bidenomics message.

A Georgia grand jury has returned indictments against former president Donald Trump and a wide swath of his confidantes and allies who prosecutors allege to have participated in a criminal enterprise with the goal of overturning the disgraced ex-president’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Grand jurors returned indictments against Mr Trump and 18 other defendants late Monday after hearing from a number of key witnesses in the long-running Georgia election probe, including Gabe Sterling, who served as a top manager in the Georgia Secretary of State’s office in late 2020, and Geoff Duncan, the state’s former Republican lieutenant governor.

Andrew Feinberg filed this report on Monday night.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the recipient of the phone call from then-president Donald Trump asking to help him “find 11,780 votes” in the state to overturn the 2020 election, released the following statement after the former president and 18 others were indicted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

“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.”

MAGA conspiracy theorist Kari Lake has reacted to Donald Trump’s latest criminal indictment – by bizarrely hinting at a conspiracy theory about the death of paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

“It’s been 3 years, almost to the day, since Jeffrey Epstein ‘killed himself.’ Not a single one of his client’s has been indicted for heinous crimes against children,” tweeted Ms Lake, who failed to win the Arizona gubernatorial race in the November midterms.

“Yet, President Trump was just indicted for the 4th time. Justice is dead in America.”