Foreign News
Trump and 18 others charged in Georgia election inquiry
Former US President Donald Trump has been charged with attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state of Georgia.
He and 18 others have been indicted on counts that include racketeering in a 41-charge document issued by a Fulton County grand jury. The indictment marks the fourth time Donald Trump has been criminally charged this year. He has denied the accusations in all cases.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis launched an investigation in February 2021 into allegations of election meddling against Mr Trump and his associates. The list of defendants indicted late on Monday night includes former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former White House lawyer John Eastman and a former justice department official, Jeffrey Clark.
The indictment says the alleged co-conspirators “knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump”.
The charge sheet also refers to the defendants as a “criminal organization”, accusing them of a number of crimes, including:
- False statements and writings
- Impersonating a public officer
- Forgery
- Filing false documents
- Influencing witnesses
- Computer trespass
- Conspiracy to defraud the state
- Theft and perjury.
The most serious charge, violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (Rico) Act, is punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison.
The act – designed to help take down organised criminal syndicates like the mafia – helps prosecutors connect the dots between underlings who broke laws and those who gave them marching orders.
Trump, currently the front-runner in the Republican Party’s race to pick its next candidate for the White House, said the investigation by Willis, a Democrat, was politically motivated.
In a statement, the Trump campaign described the district attorney as a “rabid partisan” who had filed “these bogus indictments” to interfere with the 2024 presidential race and “damage the dominant Trump campaign”. “This latest co-ordinated strike by a biased prosecutor in an overwhelmingly Democrat jurisdiction not only betrays the trust of the American people, but also exposes the true motivation driving their fabricated accusations,” said the statement.
There was confusion earlier on Monday when a list of a criminal charges against Donald Trump appeared on a Fulton County website before the grand jury had even voted to return an indictment. The filing said Trump had been charged with racketeering, conspiracy to commit fraud and making false statements. A spokesperson for Ms Willis said the document was “fictitious” but did not explain how it ended up on the court’s website.
Donald Trump and his allies seized on the apparent clerical error to claim the process was rigged.
The former President has already been charged by federal prosecutors in Washington DC with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden, a Democrat. That charge sheet devoted significant time to the Trump team’s activities in Georgia.
Willis’ investigation focuses specifically on Georgia, a key battleground state for the US presidency that Trump narrowly lost. In January 2021, Trump was recorded on a phone call asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, the number he would have required to beat Biden in that state.
At least eight “fake electors”, who signed a bogus certificate claiming Trump won the election in that state, have reached immunity deals in the case after agreeing to interviews with Fulton County prosecutors.
(BBC)
The US Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Maryland man, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador’s notorious mega-jail.
The Trump administration had conceded that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported by accident, but appealed against a federal court’s order to return him to the US.
On Thursday, in a 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court declined to block the lower court’s order.
The judge’s order “requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent”, the justices ruled.
(BBC)
A Russian-American citizen has been released in a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.
Amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina, a Los Angeles resident, had been in prison in Russia for over a year, after being arrested in the city of Yekaterinburg in early 2024.
She was found guilty of treason for donating money to a US-based charity providing humanitarian support to Ukraine and was sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony.
In exchange, the US reportedly freed Arthur Petrov, a dual German-Russian citizen arrested in Cyprus in 2023. He was accused of illegally exporting microelectronics to Russia for manufacturers working with the Russian military.
[BBC]
A nationwide general strike disrupted public services across Greece, with ferries tied up in port, flights grounded and public transport running only part-time as labour unions press for higher wages to cope with rising living costs.
The 24-hour strike on Wednesday was called by the two main umbrella unions covering the public and private sectors, seeking a full return of collective bargaining rights which were scrapped as part of international bailouts during Greece’s financial crisis.
Greece has emerged from a 2009-18 debt crisis, which saw rolling cuts in wages and pensions in turn for bailouts worth about 290 billion euros ($319bn) and economic growth seen at 2.3 percent this year, outpacing other eurozone economies.
Tapping on the country’s progress, the conservative government increased the monthly minimum wage by a cumulative 35 percent to 880 euros ($970). But many households still struggle to make ends meet amid rising food, power and housing costs, the labour unions say.
The country braces for further global financial turmoil triggered by US tariffs.
[Aljazeera]
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