Donald Trump now faces more criminal charges for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election as a case in Fulton county, Georgia, begins its next act. The district attorney, Fani Willis, has delivered a sweeping indictment that charges Trump, along with more than a dozen co-defendants, with 41 counts including racketeering, conspiracy, solicitation and filing false statements.
These are the people involved in the high-profile election investigation that could have far-reaching implications for Trump, who may well face jail time if convicted, and his chances of winning the Republican nomination in 2024.
Fani Willis
Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis, a famously tough prosecutor against gangs and organized crime, is overseeing the election investigation, which she launched in 2021, just weeks after being sworn in. A career Atlanta-area criminal prosecutor, Willis has been known to aggressively use Rico, an anti-racketeering law that is stronger in Georgia than under federal statute.
Trump and his lawyers have sought to disqualify Willis from carrying out the investigation, filing motions to do so in March and July. Trump branded Willis a “young, ambitious, Radical Left Democrat ‘Prosecutor’” in a Truth Social post last year. Willis, a Democrat, is the first Black woman to serve as Fulton county DA.
Robert McBurney
The Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney was selected to supervise the special grand jury that put together recommendations for Willis’s investigation into Trump’s behavior surrounding election results. McBurney released a partial version of the panel’s final report in February, keeping the majority of its findings under seal. Trump’s lawyers targeted McBurney, a former prosecutor, for approving Willis’s special grand jury request, asking that he disqualify her from the case.
The grand juries
Willis requested a special grand jury, assembled last May to aid her investigation into Trump and his allies’ meddling with election results. After eight months and 75 witness interviews, the jurors compiled a report with recommendations for the case. The panel was dissolved in January. Afterward, the foreperson, Emily Kohrs, hinted they recommended more than a dozen indictments, drawing backlash for her media blitz.
McBurney has empaneled two regular grand juries – and one is likely to consider charges against Trump and his allies.
Donald Trump
Of course, at the center of the criminal investigation is Donald Trump. On 2 January 2021, Trump phoned the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, pressuring him “to find 11,780 votes” – the number of ballots needed to overturn Biden’s victory in Fulton county. News reports of that hour-long phone call kicked off Willis’s investigation.
He also directed Mike Pence, then the vice-president, to reject the electoral vote in Georgia and other states revealed to be involved in what is now known as the “fake electors” scheme.
Trump is facing several other charges in different courts, including mishandling of classified documents, his role in the January 6 Capitol insurrection and hush money payments to an adult film actor.
Rudy Giuliani
Giuliani, a former Trump campaign attorney and New York mayor, repeatedly spewed false claims of election fraud in the months following Biden’s 2020 victory. That December, he met with Georgia lawmakers and spewed baseless claims of election fraud such as a conspiracy by voting machine manufacturers to flip votes from Trump to Biden. The Department of Justice and the House January 6 committee have also investigated Giuliani for his role in orchestrating the false electors scheme, where Trump allies in multiple states produced fake certificates saying he won the election. A watchdog group found Giuliani to be a “central figure”. A disciplinary panel has said Giuliani should be disbarred.
Mark Meadows
Serving as Donald Trump’s chief of staff during the 2020 election and its aftermath, Meadows was at the center of hundreds of messages about how to keep Trump in power, according to texts he turned over to the House January 6 select committee. Meadows was also on the infamous phone call Trump placed to Raffensperger demanding he “find 11,780 votes”. A judge ordered Meadows to testify in the Georgia election investigation – though Meadows had repeatedly tried to avoid doing so.
Jenna Ellis
Ellis, a Trump campaign attorney and former Colorado prosecutor, spread multiple statements claiming voter fraud during the 2020 election and sent at least two memos advising Mike Pence to reject Biden’s victory in Georgia and other states. She was ordered to appear before the special grand jury in 2022. Earlier this year, the Colorado supreme court censured Ellis for making false statements and she acknowledged making misrepresentations as part of the agreement.
Kenneth Chesebro
Also known as “co-conspirator 5” in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal election fraud inquiry, Chesebro has been revealed to be one of the main architects of the fake electors scheme –– which he described as a “bold, controversial plan”. The New York Times obtained a copy of a memo from Chesebro to a Wisconsin attorney laying out a three-pronged plan to overturn election results in six states, including Georgia, and keep Trump in power. Willis subpoenaed Chesebro to appear before the special grand jury but the New York-based attorney moved to quash it.
Sidney Powell
An attorney associated with Trump’s campaign after the 2020 election, Powell, who filed a lawsuit against Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, alleging voter fraud, is thought to be “co-conspirator 3” in the federal investigation by Jack Smith. Along with Rudy Giuliani, Powell appeared regularly on conservative news networks where she spewed baseless claims of election fraud, including foreign rigging of voting machines and was one of the most prominent names in the defamation case brought upon Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems, whose individual case against Powell is still pending.
Jeffrey Clark
A former justice department attorney, Clark has been identified as “co- conspirator 4” in the federal January 6 investigation. Clark allegedly tried to coerce justice department officials to sign a letter to officials in several states. He drafted a letter to Georgia officials in late December 2020 falsely claiming the justice department had “identified significant concerns” that may have impacted election results in multiple states, including Georgia –– but it remained unsent. He also reportedly plotted with Trump to oust the acting attorney general, but failed.
John Eastman
Thought to be one of the main architects of Trump’s strategy to overturn the 2020 election, Eastman – identified as “co-conspirator 2” in the federal January 6 inquiry – drafted a six-step plan that directed Mike Pence to reject Biden’s victory.
Lin Wood
The former Georgia defamation attorney Lin Wood pushed conspiracy theories of interference in the 2020 election and filed lawsuits alleging voter fraud. He retired his Georgia law license before it could get revoked.
Ray Stallings Smith III
An Atlanta-area lawyer who represented Lin Wood in his lawsuit against Brad Raffensperger, Smith’s legal team previously indicated he may be a target in the Georgia election inquiry. Following the November 2020 election, Smith sent a letter to Raffensperger and submitted several affidavits.
Geoff Duncan
The former lieutenant governor of Georgia, who was in office during and after the 2020 election, has been one of the most outspoken Republican critics of Trump and his efforts to overturn the results. He was called to testify before a grand jury as Willis neared her indictment. Trump appeared to warn Duncan against testifying, calling him “a nasty disaster for those looking into the election fraud that took place in Georgia” in a post on Truth Social.
Burt Jones
Georgia’s current lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, was one of the 16 fake electors in Georgia who signed the “unofficial election certificate” handing the win to Trump. Jones, a Republican, was a member of the Georgia senate in 2020 and was endorsed by Trump in his campaign for lieutenant governor. Judge McBurney disqualified Willis from investigating Jones because she held a fundraiser for his Democratic opponent, Charlie Bailey, and donated to Bailey’s campaign.
Brad Raffensperger
Georgia’s Republican secretary of state since 2019, Brad Raffensperger shut down continued attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn Georgia’s election results. Days ahead of the January 6 Capitol attack, the Washington Post published a recording of the hour-long phone call between Trump and Raffensperger, who rejected Trump’s request to challenge Biden’s victory and told Trump he was relying on debunked conspiracy theories. He defeated his Trump-backed challenger in the 2022 Republican primary, winning re-election.
Robert Sinners
A Trump campaign staffer in 2020, Sinners wrote to the 16 Republican electors in Georgia asking them to maintain “complete secrecy” as they arrived to cast votes for Trump despite Biden’s victory.
Frances Watson
A week before he called Raffensperger, Trump phoned Frances Watson, then the chief investigator for the Georgia secretary of state, alleging widespread fraud amid a state audit of absentee ballots.
Fake electors:
David Shafer
Chairperson of Georgia’s Republican party since 2019, Shafer was one of the fake electors who falsely claimed Trump won in Georgia. Judge McBurney ruled last year that Shafer played an outsized role in organizing the signatures and thus could not be treated the same as the other electors indicted in the case.
Cathy Latham
Latham, a former Coffee county, Georgia GOP chairwoman, was also one of the Georgia electors who cast ballots falsely claiming Trump won the 2020 election. She has tried repeatedly to stop the investigation. Legal filings show that a forensics team aligned with Trump gained unauthorized access to voting machines in Coffee county. Willis, the DA, informed all 11 individuals they may be indicted.
Robert Cheeley
Cheeley, a Georgia lawyer, was a lead attorney on one pro-Trump Georgia lawsuit demanding access to ballots in a Fulton county warehouse and has represented one of the state’s 16 fake electors, Cathy Latham. He also attended a Georgia state senate hearing in late December 2020, along with Rudy Giuliani, where he alleged voter fraud and presented video clips of poll workers, claiming they were double-counting votes.
Mike Roman
A former Trump campaign staffer, Roman was involved in the plot to deliver lists of fake electors to Mike Pence on 6 January 2021 in a bid to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. A former White House aide, he served as Trump’s director of election day operations and attempted to convince state legislators to unlawfully appoint alternate electors, according to the indictment.
Shawn Still
Still, now a Republican Georgia state senator, is one of three named fake electors – along with David Shafer and Cathy Latham – in the sprawling indictment. He served as the finance chair for the Georgia Republican party in 2020.
Stephen Lee
A longtime Georgia police chaplain, Lee traveled to the home of a Georgia election worker, Ruby Freeman – who was targeted by conspiracy theorists after Trump’s campaign falsely claimed participated in election fraud – identifying himself as a pastor trying to help.
Harrison Floyd
Floyd, who was associated with the group Black Voices for Trump, coordinating with Stephen Lee and Trevian Kutti, attempted to coerce false testimony from the Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman.
Trevian Kutti
A Chicago-based publicist, Kutti threatened a Georgia election worker, Ruby Freeman, with jail if she did not say she participated in election fraud. Kutti worked in coordination with Stephen Lee and Harrison Floyd.
Scott Hall
A Georgia bail bondsman and Trump supporter, Hall illegally sought access to voting machines in Coffee county, Georgia, to search for evidence they were rigged.
Misty Hampton
The former elections supervisor for Coffee county, Georgia, Hampton was present when a Trump-aligned group sought to illegally access voting machines in search of fraud and directed much of the group’s search.
