Trump, associates indicted in Georgia on 41 counts of attempt to subvert 2020 election

A Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury indicted former U.S. President Donald Trump and 18 associates on Monday for "conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome" of the 2020 presidential election.

Among the 18 indicted associates were Trump's lawyers, John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, as well as former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

"Defendant Donald John Trump lost the United States presidential election held on November 3, 2020. One of the states he lost was Georgia. Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump," read the indictment in part.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis aimed to use Georgia’s RICO Act, which allows prosecutors to “string together crimes committed by different people toward one common goal,” according to news site Axios. The RICO Act is a "legal tool normally reserved for the Mafia and organized crime."

Since the charges are being pursued in the state of Georgia, the active U.S. president does not have the authority to pardon because in Georgia only a Board of Pardons and Paroles is permitted to perform that act.

The board “requires that a sentence be completed at least five years prior to applying for a pardon,” according to the report.

This is the fourth indictment against the former president, who is widely considered to be the frontrunner for the nomination as GOP presidential candidate in 2024.

Trump denies any wrongdoing in all four cases, claiming that they are politically motivated to hurt his chances in 2024.

"This politically-inspired indictment, which could have been brought close to three years ago, was tailored for placement right smack in the middle of my political campaign," Trump told Fox News Digital.

Trump added that Fani Willis "should focus on the people that rigged the 2020 presidential election, not those who demand an answer as to what happened." 

The Trump campaign published a statement calling Willis a “rabid partisan who is campaigning and fundraising on a platform of prosecuting President Trump through these bogus indictments.”

After the third indictment against Trump, his campaign stated: “The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes.”

The CEO of the Anti-Defamation League Jonathan Greenblatt, responded to the Trump statement.

“Comparing this indictment to Nazi Germany in the 1930s is factually incorrect, completely inappropriate and flat-out offensive. As we have said time and again, such comparisons have no place in politics and are shameful," he wrote on Twitter.