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Washington: Security is being beefed up in Washington and Georgia as Donald Trump braces for the possibility of two more criminal indictments within days, both over his attempts to stop Joe Biden becoming president.
In Atlanta, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has confirmed that after a 2.5-year investigation, she was “ready to go” with a decision that could result in racketeering and conspiracy charges against Trump and his allies for interfering in the 2020 election in Georgia.
An officer in riot gear stands between supporters of President Donald Trump and counter protesters as the groups yell at each other outside of the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta on Saturday, Nov. 21, 2020.Credit: AP
And in Washington DC, Trump himself predicted on Monday that he would be indicted “any day now” as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s probe into his conduct surrounding the deadly attack on the US Capitol in 2021.
“ELECTION INTERFERENCE! PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!” he lamented on his Truth Social website, reinforcing his view that the cases against him are a political witch-hunt.
The charges in those two separate cases would bring the number of criminal indictments Trump faces ahead of next year’s election to four.
In New York in April, Trump made history by becoming the first former president to face a state-based indictment over alleged hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels; in June he shattered yet another precedent by becoming the first ex-president to be federally charged, this time over the mishandling of classified documents he kept at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Yet despite his legal woes, figures show that Trump is continuing to surge ahead of all the other candidates seeking the Republican nomination for president.
A fresh A Siena College/New York Times poll released on Monday found that 54 per cent of likely GOP voters backed Trump, compared to 17 for his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump’s 37 percentage-point lead over DeSantis, who has struggled to gain traction despite the initial hype surrounding him after his midterm election success, is the largest so far.
“I want voters to listen to this – it is most likely, that by the time we get to the debate stage on August 23, the frontrunner will be out on bail in four different jurisdictions: Florida, Washington, Georgia and New York,” former Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a former Trump ally turned rival, told CNN over the weekend.
Donald Trump with former New Jersey governor Chris Christie in 2016.Credit: AP
Whether a fresh round of charges will sway the minds of Republican voters is yet to be seen.
However, in a sign that things are coming to a head, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has given her strongest hint yet that a criminal indictment may be imminent over the attempt by Trump and allies to subvert the 2020 election vote in Georgia – the battleground state that ultimately secured Biden’s election victory.
Barricades have also gone up around Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta as part of a broad suite of security measures to protect the area amid concerns of unrest.
“I think that the sheriff is doing something smart in making sure that the courthouse stays safe,” Willis, a Democrat, told local network WXIA at an event over the weekend.
In relation to the probe, she said: “The work is accomplished… We’ve been working for two and half years. We’re ready to go.”
Democratic and Republican representatives review absentee ballots at the Fulton County election centre. Credit: AP
Since 2021, Willis has been overseeing a special grand jury investigation that was sparked, in part, by Trump’s now infamous phone call to Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to “find” the votes needed to stop Biden winning the Georgia.
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” an insistent Trump is heard saying on a leaked recording of the call. “Because we won the state.”
But the probe has also embroiled key members of Trump’s orbit, such as disgraced lawyer Rudy Giuliani, as well as lesser known state Republicans, all of whom were allegedly involved in a brazen scheme to create a slate of “fake electors” who would flip the results by sending phony vote tallies to the US Congress.
Under the US’s system for presidential elections, states use “electors” to officially represent the will of voters in each state. Trump’s campaign tried to nominate and send electors who would have illegally stood for Trump, rather than Biden who won Georgia.
In a last ditch attempt to block the Georgia investigation, the former president had sought to throw out evidence collected by the special grand jury in the case and remove Willis from the investigation.
However, a Georgia judge rejected this bid on Monday, writing in a nine-page order that the former president did not have the legal standing to make such challenges before indictments were handed down.
Meanwhile, in Washington DC, a separate grand jury is due to meet tomorrow (Tuesday local time) as part of the months-long probe into Trump’s attempt to stop Biden’s election victory from being certified, allegedly by conspiring to set up a fake electors scheme across multiple states and then, when that failed, by inciting the riots at the US Capitol.
Law enforcement authorities have been making security preparations for days amid expectations of a possible indictment, after the Justice Department sent Trump a letter two weeks ago informing him he was a target. According to the letter, Trump could be charged over three statutes: witness tampering; conspiracy to defraud the United States; and deprivation of rights under colour of law.
Today, he declared: “I assume that an Indictment from Deranged Jack Smith and his highly partisan gang of Thugs, pertaining to my “PEACEFULLY & PATRIOTICALLY (sic) Speech, will be coming out any day now” as a strategy to bury bad news relating to the business dealings of Hunter Biden, which are currently under scrutiny.
Smith is the special counsel overseeing the classified documents case, which intensified last week when Trump was hit with additional charges, along with a new co-defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, who is accused of scheming with the former president of trying to delete security footage sought by investigators.
De Oliveira, the property manager of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate made his first court appearance on Monday but did not enter a plea because he has not found a Florida-based attorney to represent him. He was released on bail with an arraignment scheduled for August 10.
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