On Monday, Donald Trump and several of his allies—including his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and attorney Rudy Giuliani—were indicted on felony charges in relation to attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. The 41-count indictment also includes lawyers Sidney Powell, John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro.
All have been charged with violating Georgia’s RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization) act. Despite this being the fourth time Trump has been indicted in the last 4½ months—and the second time he’s been charged with trying to interfere with the election in the past two weeks—it won’t stop conservatives from supporting him. Quite frankly, nothing will.
In April, Trump became the first former president to be indicted for his alleged crimes when he pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records and conspiracy. His lawyer at the time, Alina Habba, compared her client to slain rappers Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G: “Donald Trump is Tupac. Donald Trump’s Biggie Smalls, he’s better than Tupac...Donald Trump is his own brand.”
She continued, “He is everything. This is just gonna boost him, we’ve seen it in the polls. It’s not a question, it’s a fact.”
When Trump was arraigned later that month, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene compared Trump’s prosecution to the persecution of Jesus Christ. “There have been many people throughout history that have been arrested and persecuted by radical corrupt governments, and it’s beginning today in New York City,” she stated.
In June, Trump was indicted in Florida on 37 counts for illegally holding on to and mishandling highly sensitive national security information. Even the overwhelming evidence against him didn’t stop the GOP from rallying behind Trump following these scandals. This support ultimately led him to declare his candidacy in the 2024 presidential race. Even though Trump’s legal issues have financially bled his campaign dry, he still remains the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said during a news conference that arrest warrants have been issued for all of the defendants in the Georgia case and that each has until Aug. 25 to surrender to their own accord. In addition, she plans to try all 19 defendants together and go to trial within the next six months. Willis’ investigation into Trump’s role in trying to overturn the 2020 election lasted two years.
Though Trump has been indicted so many times he could spend the rest of his life in prison, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has stated that this latest indictment is not “something that is good for the country” and that Willis is “doing an inordinate amount of resources to try to shoehorn this contest over the 2020 election into a RICO statute.”
Sen. Tim Scott called the slew of charges against Trump “un-American and unacceptable.” Sen. Ted Cruz also stated that Trump was unfairly targeted and that the American justice system was being abused. These sentiments in the GOP are ones that have been echoed for years and will always absolve Trump of any wrongdoing.