Donald J. Trump is faces felony counts in the State of Georgia regarding Trump and his allies illegally seeking to overturn the state’s election results.
If Trump is charged it will mark his fourth Indictment in five months and the second to arise from his efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents.
Among those named in the sweeping indictment, charged under Georgia’s anti-racketeering law, are Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who served as Trump’s personal attorney after the election; Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; and several Trump advisers, including attorneys John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro, architects of a scheme to create slates of alternate Trump electors.
Also indicted were two Georgia-based lawyers advocating on Trump’s behalf, Ray S. Smith II, and Robert Cheeley; a senior campaign adviser, Mike Roman, who helped plan the elector meeting; and two prominent Georgia Republicans who served as electors: former GOP chairman David Shafer and former GOP finance chairman Shawn Still.
Several lesser known players who participated in efforts to reverse Trump’s defeat in Georgia were also indicted, including three people accused of harassing Fulton County election worker Ruby Freeman. They are Stephen Cliffgard Lee, Harrison Floyd and Trevian Kutti. The latter is a former publicist for R. Kelly and associate of Kanye West.
A final group of individuals charged in the indictment allegedly participated in an effort to steal election-equipment data in rural Coffee County, Ga. They are former Coffee County elections supervisor Misty Hampton, former Coffee County GOP chair Cathy Latham and Georgia businessman Scott Hall.
9:30pm EST: Georgia Grand Jury returns 10 Indictments; Awaiting Unsealing
10:54pm EST: Trump indictment is unsealed
10:57pm EST: Former President Trump and 18 co-defendants have been charged altogether with more than 41 counts in Georgia’s 2020 election probe (19 Total Charged)
11:05pmEST: Fulton County DA will be speaking live.
11:05pm EST: Those charged Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Ray S. Smith III, Robert Cheeley, Mike Roman, David Shafer, Shawn Still, Stephen Cliffgard Lee, Harrison Floyd, Trevian Kutti, Misty Hampton, Cathy Latham, and Scott Hall
11:10pm EST: Read the full indictment
11:30pm EST: Awaiting Fulton County DA to speak
11:38pm EST: Fulton County DA press conference
11:45pm EST: Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis states that there will be no probation, and the minimum sentence is jail time.
She described the landmark indictment against Donald Trump and allies for attempting to alter the 2020 elections. Ms Willis said the indictment alleged a “criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in this state” which had “the illegal goal of allowing Donald J Trump to seize the presidential term of office.”
The prosecutor announced a deadline of 25 August for the defendants to turn themselves in.
11:50pm EST: All 19 will be tried together.
Sources:
Reuters: Georgia court website briefly publishes, removes document about potential Trump charges
Rolling Stone: Trump’s ‘Co-Conspirators’ Are Already Starting to Turn on Each Other
NBC News: Fulton County grand jury returns 10 indictments in 2020 election probe for Georgia
The Independent: Trump campaign launches sprawling attack as Georgia grand jury hands down indictments
MSNBC: Hillary Clinton tells Rachel Maddow: Trump indictments mean ‘the system is working’
Washington Post: Trump charged in Georgia 2020 election probe, his fourth indictment
The short answer: Federal sentencing supercedes State sentencing in almost all cases. So, if you are convicted in both Federal and State Court you will serve the Federal time first.
The more in depth answer: Let’s use a current example, Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of second degree murder by the State of Minnesota and then convicted of Civil Rights violations in Federal Court after that. In his case the agreement after his Federal conviction was to allow him to serve his State & Federal sentences concurrently while serving his time within the Federal prison system.
However, there are often stipulations that can preclude you from being able to serve your time concurrently. If, for example, you are convicted of different crimes that are not directly related to one another in both the Federal and State systems or if your State sentence happened to be longer than your Federal sentence then you may not be eligible to serve that time concurrently, in which case you serve the Federal time first before being remanded to State custody upon your release from Federal prison to serve the remainder of your sentence.
In this specific case it is likely that the crimes would be seen to be related, so if there was a conviction that included both Federal and State prison time then the sentences would likely be served concurrently within the Federal prison system. However, if there was a Federal conviction that had a probationary sentence, and then also a RICO conviction in Georgia then the prison time would be served in the Georgia State Prison system.
That last option is the absolute hell on earth scenario for everyone involved as the Georgia State Prison system is widely considered to be one of the worst systems in the country. Violence and corruption is rampant, and there are currently multiple investigations into wrongful deaths both in county jails as well as prison complexes. If any of them are convicted, and sentenced to Georgia State Prison they are going to have a rough time to say the least.
Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to detail out this answer. I couldn’t have asked for more! I