In addition to former President Donald Trump, the indictment handed up by a state grand jury in Georgia names 18 defendants.
The list includes familiar names, such as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and others who may not be known outside of Georgia.
The allegations largely involve making false statements about election fraud in an attempt to get Georgia public officials to replace lawful electors for Joe Biden with unlawful Trump electors. They also involve a breach of elections equipment in Coffee County, Georgia.
Here is a list of all 18 defendants who, in the words of the indictment, participated in “a criminal organization” to “unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.” They are all charged with violating the Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act, among other charges.
Rudy Giuliani. A Trump lawyer, Giuliani is charged with 13 felony counts. He is accused of “overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy” that included making false statements about election fraud and pressuring state officials in various states to “unlawfully appoint presidential electors” for Trump. Among other things, Giuliani is accused of making false statements at a Georgia Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Dec. 30, 2020, including falsely claiming that 10,315 dead people and 2,560 felons voted in the state’s presidential election. Giuliani is also listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal grand jury indictment against Trump that the U.S. Department of Justice filed on Aug. 1.
John Eastman. Like Giuliani, Eastman is a lawyer and an unindicted co-conspirator in the Aug. 1 federal grand jury indictment against Trump. In Georgia, Eastman is charged with nine felony counts — mostly related to helping to organize “unlawful” electors for Trump in Georgia, even though Trump lost the state. For example, Eastman sent an email on Dec. 6, 2020, to several people, including another indicted co-conspirator, “that stated that the Trump presidential elector nominees in Georgia needed to meet on December 14, 2020, sign six sets of certificates of vote, and mail them ‘to the President of the Senate and to other officials.'” The charges against him also include making false statements in a court filing.
Mark Meadows. A former congressman, Meadows was Trump’s chief of staff. He is charged with two felony counts, including soliciting a public officer to violate his oath. Specifically, the indictment mentions the now-famous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call that Trump and Meadows placed to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. On the phone call, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.” For his part, Meadows refused to accept the state’s finding that only two votes were cast in the names of people who had died. “I can promise you there were more than that,” Meadows told the secretary of state. The indictment accuses both men of requesting that Raffensperger illegally alter “the certified returns for presidential electors.”
Kenneth Chesebro. A lawyer, Chesebro is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Aug. 1 federal grand jury indictment against Trump. As with the federal indictment, the state indictment says Chesebro wrote a series of memos that explained how Trump electors in Georgia and other states can “convene and cast false Electoral College votes.” In addition to the memos, the indictment cites several emails, including one on Dec. 10, 2020, in which Chesebro tells Georgia Republican Party Chairman David James Shafer that he had been asked by the Trump campaign “to help with logistics of the electors … casting their votes” for Trump on Dec. 14, 2020. On that day, Trump electors met at the Georgia Capitol to cast their Electoral College votes for Trump, even though he lost the state. Chesebro is charged with seven felony counts.
Update, Oct. 24: On Oct. 20, Chesebro pleaded guilty to one felony count of filing false documents. He agreed to five years of probation, $5,000 in restitution, 100 hours of community service and to write a letter of apology. He also agreed to testify truthfully in future court proceedings.
Jeffrey Clark. Clark was the acting assistant attorney general for the civil division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The indictment charges him with two felony counts, including “criminal intent to commit false statements and writings.” Specifically, the indictment alleges that Clark in furtherance of the conspiracy drafted a letter on Dec. 28, 2020, to the state Legislature of Georgia that falsely claimed the Department of Justice had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.” Clark “solicited Acting United States Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Acting United States Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue to sign and send” the letter. But, as we have written, Donoghue and Rosen refused to sign the letter, which was never sent. Clark is also an unindicted co-conspirator in the Aug. 1 federal grand jury indictment against Trump.
Jenna Lynn Ellis. The indictment charges Ellis — a Trump campaign lawyer — with soliciting public officials to violate their oaths of office. The indictment claims that Ellis and others, including Giuliani and Eastman, “unlawfully solicited” Georgia state senators at a Dec. 3, 2020, committee hearing “to engage in conduct constituting the felony offense of Violation of Oath by Public Officer … by unlawfully appointing presidential electors from the State of Georgia.”
Update, Oct. 24: On Oct. 24, Ellis pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings, which is a felony. Under the plea deal, Ellis will receive five years of probation, pay $5,000 in restitution and perform 100 hours of community service. She also agreed to testify truthfully in future court procedings. In a statement she read in open court, Ellis said she “failed to do my due diligence.” She said, “What I did not do, but I should, was make sure the facts that the other lawyers alleged to be true were in fact true.”
Ray S. Smith III. An Atlanta-based lawyer, Smith “encouraged certain individuals present at the December 14, 2020, meeting of Trump presidential elector nominees in Fulton County, Georgia, to sign the document titled ‘CERTIFICATE OF THE VOTES OF THE 2020 ELECTORS FROM GEORGIA,'” even though Trump lost the state of Georgia, the indictment says. Smith, who was not an elector, is charged with 12 felony counts in all — including soliciting Georgia state senators at a Dec. 3, 2020, committee hearing “to engage in conduct constituting the felony offense of Violation of Oath by Public Officer … by unlawfully appointing presidential electors from the State of Georgia.”
Robert David Cheeley. An attorney, Cheeley is cited several times in the indictment in connection with the alleged scheme to have Trump electors vote on Dec. 14, 2020, even though Trump lost the state to Biden. He is charged with 10 felony counts, including perjury for statements he allegedly made to the grand jury about the Dec. 14, 2020, meeting of Trump electors.
Michael A. Roman. Roman was director of the Trump campaign’s Election Day operations. After the election, he was given the task of helping to organize Trump electors to vote in the states that Trump lost. In one email, Roman said, “I need a tracker for the electors,” according to the indictment, which went on to say that Roman “instructed individuals associated with the Trump Campaign to populate entries on a shared spreadsheet listing Trump presidential elector nominees in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.” A day before the Dec. 14, 2020, meeting of Trump electors in Georgia, Chesebro emailed Roman and told him that Giuliani “wants to keep this quiet until after all the voting is done.” Roman is charged with seven felony counts.
David Shafer. Shafer, former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, is charged with eight felony counts. He presided over the Dec. 14, 2020, meeting of Trump electors on the day the electors voted, and cast his electoral vote for Trump. He also signed the “Certificate of the Votes of the 2020 Electors from Georgia,” which was sent to the U.S. Senate, the archivist of the United States, the Georgia secretary of state and the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Georgia.
Shawn Still. Still, who was elected to the Georgia state Senate in 2022, is charged with seven felony counts, including “impersonating a public officer” for casting an electoral ballot for Trump on Dec. 14, 2020. The indictment says that Still, Shafer and others who voted for Trump that day “unlawfully falsely held themselves out as the duly elected and qualified presidential electors from the State of Georgia.”
Stephen C. Lee. An Illinois minister, Lee is charged with five felony counts in connection with his alleged attempt to influence the testimony of Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County election worker, during a state election fraud investigation. The indictment says that Lee traveled to Freeman’s home “purporting to offer her help, and with intent to influence her testimony in an official proceeding in Fulton County, Georgia, concerning events at State Farm Arena in the November 3, 2020, presidential election.” Specifically, the indictment says that Trump falsely accused Freeman and others of “fraudulently awarding at least 18,000 ballots” to Biden at State Farm Arena that night. As we wrote, the state investigators found no evidence of fraud.
Trevian C. Kutti. A Chicago publicist, Kutti is also accused of trying to influence Freeman’s testimony. On Jan. 4, 2021, Kutti traveled to Freeman’s home and “spoke with Freeman’s neighbor and falsely stated that she was a crisis manager attempting to ‘help’ Freeman,” the indictment says. Kutti also called Freeman that day and arranged to meet her at the Cobb County Police Department, where they spoke for more than an hour, and “purported to offer [Freeman] help,” according to the indictment. Like Lee, Kutti is charged with trying to get Freeman to make “a false statement and representation concerning events at State Farm Arena” on Nov. 3, 2020.
Harrison William Prescott Floyd. Known as Willie Lewis Floyd III, Floyd was associated with a group called “Black Voices for Trump,” according to the indictment. Lee, who is white, asked Floyd “to assist with his effort to speak to Ruby Freeman,” claiming Freeman was afraid to talk to him because he’s “a white man,” the indictment says. On Jan. 4, 2021, when Kutti spoke to Freeman at the Cobb County Police Department, Floyd joined the meeting by phone. Floyd told Freeman “that she needed protection and purported to offer her help,” the indictment says. Floyd is charged with three felony counts, including influencing witnesses.
Sidney Powell. A lawyer, Powell is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Aug. 1 federal grand jury indictment against Trump. Powell is charged in the Georgia state indictment with seven felony counts. Among other things, she is accused of making false statements about fraud in the presidential election “in furtherance of the conspiracy,” including at a Nov. 19, 2020, press conference with Giuliani that we described as “a gusher of false and unfounded allegations of voter fraud.” Powell also hired a company “for the performance of computer forensic collection and analytics on Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Michigan and elsewhere,” the indictment says. That contract allegedly resulted in an “unlawful breach of election equipment in Coffee County, Georgia,” as described below.
Update, Oct. 24: On Oct. 19, Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties. Under the deal, Powell agreed to serve six years of probation, and pay $6,000 in fines and $2,700 in restitution. She also agreed to testify truthfullly in future court procedings and write a letter of apology to Georgia citizens.
Cathleen Alston Latham. Latham is a former Republican Party leader in Coffee County who was one of the “unlawful” electors for Trump. The indictment also accuses her of being part of an “unlawful breach of election equipment” in Coffee County. According to the indictment, Latham on Jan. 6, 2021, discussed “Scott Graham Hall’s request to assist with the unlawful breach of election equipment at the Coffee County Board of Elections & Registration Office.” The next day, Latham sent a text message to the company doing the “computer forensic collection” to arrange for Hall to be picked up at the airport “for the purpose of assisting with the unlawful breach of election equipment,” according to the indictment. Later that day, Latham, Powell, Hall and Misty Hampton “committed the felony offense of computer trespass” and “computer invasion of privacy” by copying data from the election equipment, the indictment says. (The Associated Press wrote a September 2022 article that provides more details.)
Scott Graham Hall. Hall is a bail bondsman in Georgia who was at the center of the breach of election equipment in Coffee County, as described above. In a Nov. 20, 2020, email, Shafer, the state party chairman at the time, described Hall as someone who “has been looking into the election on behalf of the President.”
Update, Oct. 24: On Sept. 29, Hall pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties. Under the deal, Hall agreed to serve five years of probation, pay $5,000 in fines, serve 200 hours of community service, draft a letter of apology to Georgia citizens and testify truthfully in future court proceedings.
Misty Hampton. Hampton was the Coffee County elections supervisor who made a viral video claiming to show that Dominion voting machines were vulnerable to manipulation, according to a Washington Post article in May 2022. She told the Post at that time that Hall and others had visited Coffee County and that she hoped they would be able to prove “that this election was not done true and correct.” As a result of the election equipment breach, Hampton, Latham, Hall and Powell are accused in the indictment of “willfully and unlawfully tampering with electronic ballot markers and tabulating machines” and “unlawful possession of ballots.”
Update, March 14: In a March 13 order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee tossed out six of the 41 criminal counts. All six counts were alleged violations of O.C.G.A. §§ 16-4-7 & 16-10-1 — soliciting public officers to violate their oaths of office. The original indictment alleged that Trump, Giuliani, Eastman, Ellis, Smith, Meadows and Cheeley solicited Georgia state officials to unlawfully alter or otherwise influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Although the solicitation charges were dropped, the RICO conspiracy count remains against all defendants. The judge wrote that his decision did not “apply to the corresponding overt acts” alleged in the RICO conspiracy count.
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