From Giuliani to Meadows: Trump’s future benchmates for election meddling in Georgia

The new indictment of Donald Trump, in Georgia, is the most detailed yet. It is also the most extensive: 18 collaborators and supporters of the former president have been accused along with him of criminal association to alter the result of the 2020 elections in that State. These are some of the future bench mates of the Republican candidate for the White House:

Rudy Giuliani, the sweaty former mayor

Trump’s electoral defeat in November 2020 will forever be associated with the image of the former New York mayor, sweaty and dripping with hair dye, as he tried to defend to the media, without providing any evidence, that there had been fraud in the results and the The real winner was the then president. The tycoon’s personal lawyer was one of the masterminds in the plans to try to reverse the results, including a grotesque plot to bring fake voters to Congress who voted for Trump at the election results certification ceremony.

Together with his client, Giuliani accumulates the highest number of charges: 13. He is accused of criminal association in violation of the law against organized crime in Georgia; three counts of pressuring an official to do something contrary to his professional obligations; three counts of false statements; conspiracy to impersonate a public official; two counts of conspiracy to forge documents; two counts of conspiracy to present false statements, and conspiracy to present false documentation.

The attorney is also the subject of a defamation lawsuit filed by two former Georgia election officials whom he had accused of perpetrating voter fraud. Giuliani has admitted that his allegations were false, but also points out that he will argue that with them he exercised his freedom of expression and did not harm those who were slandered.

Giuliani, in November 2020 during a press conference in Washington. JIM LO SCALZO (EFE)

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SubscribeMark Meadows, former Chief of Staff

Trump’s chief of staff also played a key role in the Georgia plot, according to the statement, which charges him with two charges. He organized and was present at various calls by the then-outgoing president to state officials to pressure them to alter the results of the vote, which had given Joe Biden the winner. Among those calls was the one that sparked the judicial investigation: a conversation between Trump and the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, in which the president asked him to “find” 11,780 votes, those necessary to surpass the Democrat in the recount.

According to the charge sheet, Meadows conspired with a number of Trump aides to explore ways to keep the president in the White House. She even traveled to Georgia to visit a vote counting center by surprise in December 2020.

John Eastman, mastermind of the plan

This conservative lawyer was one of the brains that devised and tried to organize the voter substitution plot. In a meeting that Giuliani also participated in, he tried to convince Georgia state lawmakers that the Republican-majority Senate could nominate its own electors and send them to the certification ceremony. Once there, Vice President Mike Pence could decide that they were the true representatives of the state and accept their votes in favor of Trump. This adviser also falsely stated that Trump’s defeat in Georgia was due in part to the votes of 66,000 minors and 2,500 disenfranchised convicted felons. He is charged with nine counts, including conspiracy to impersonate officials.

Kenneth Chesebro, Six States Coordinator

Another lawyer. Chesebro was the first to bring up the fake voters plan, which he proposed to a friend on the Trump campaign. This appeals lawyer contacted the president’s legal team, including Giuliani, to coordinate plans in six swing states, including Georgia. He is charged with seven counts.

Sidney Powell, the prosecutor who spread hoaxes

The former prosecutor was one of the most insistent voices when spreading hoaxes about the election results, including false claims that electronic voting machines were rigged in favor of Biden. She even went so far as to claim that Georgia authorities, including Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, had taken bribes to participate in the tongo. Trump even considered appointing her a special prosecutor to investigate the election results. The charge sheet also appears to implicate her in an attempt to hack into the computer systems of voting machines in Coffee County. She is charged with seven counts.

Jeffrey Clark, official Trump fan

This mid-level official in the Justice Department is charged with two counts. Clark, a Trump supporter, offered to write a letter to authorities in various hinge states on behalf of his department, in which he would ensure that justice saw signs of voting irregularities and demanded that local officials send their own groups of pro-Trump voters to the certification ceremony on January 6, 2021.

Trump was so enthusiastic about Clark that he wanted to make him attorney general. The idea was only scrapped when department officials threatened to resign en bloc if then-acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, who had refused to accept Trump’s hoaxes about the election results, was removed.

David Shafer and Shawn Still, fake voters

Former Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer was one of Trump’s fake voters. He chaired and helped organize a meeting of this group in December. He is charged with eight counts. Still, currently a state legislator in Georgia, was also a false voter. At the December meeting, he was the person in charge of verifying the identities of the attendees and preventing public and press access to the state Capitol room where the deliberations were held. He is charged with seven charges.

Stephen Clifford Lee, the pastor who harassed an official

This Protestant pastor from Chicago is accused of harassing election official Ruby Freeman and other participants in the recount. Freeman, who had been accused by Giuliani of counting “suitcases full” of illicit votes in Atlanta, called police after Lee knocked on his door multiple times in December 2020. The reverend replied that he was “working with other people to help to Ruby” and “get the truth”. He also tried, with the mediation of others, to set up a meeting with the official. He is charged with five charges.

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