WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump and 18 allies were indicted in Georgia on Monday night for scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.
“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” reads the indictment issued Monday night by the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
What is Donald Trump charged with?
Trump is charged with 13 counts in addition to racketeering. He's accused of soliciting a public officer to violate his oath, conspiring to commit forgery and conspiring to file false documents among others.
Trump became the first former president in U.S. history to be indicted on criminal charges. Just months later, he faces 91 charges total, which could land him more than 700 years behind bars — if he were convicted for all of them.
Including Monday's 97-page indictment, Trump now faces a total of four indictments: two at the state level and two at the federal level.
District attorneys and the Justice Department special council have indicted him in a classified documents case, hush money scheme, New York civil cases and now a Georgie election interference case.
Can Donald Trump still run for office?
Well, the short answer is yes.
"As a legal matter, Trump is still free to run for office," said Karen Kedrowski, a political science professor at Iowa State University. "We have had incarcerated people run for office, and sometimes [they are] elected."
Kedrowski also doesn't see the former president backing down from the presidential race, either.
"You would expect a candidate for the highest office in the land, when indicted, to withdrawal because it would be for the good of the country and to focus on their own defense," she said. "Well, that's not happening."
Kedrowski said, if former President Trump withdrew from the presidential race due to these recent indictments, the public might see it as "losing".
But some Republicans believe these indictments won't hurt Trump, with his Iowa co-chair Zach Braun telling Local 5 he doesn't foresee a problem for the former president's 2024 campaign.
"I think he's going to be 100% fine," Zaun said. "I mean this is all 'gotcha', this is election interference and ultimately, it will go to the U.S. Supreme Court, and they'll probably throw it out. They probably won't even hear the case."
“I think the liberals will do anything in their power to make sure that he’s not going to be president of the United States," Zaun added.