Former president Donald Trump was at the center of the criminal charges filed this week related to his attempts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, but he was not alone: 18 other people were indicted with Trump under racketeering charges brought by a grand jury convened by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis. Right Wing Watch is publishing brief profiles of some of Trump’s fellow indictees.
Rudy Giuliani: From ‘America’s Mayor’ to Trump’s Buffoon
Aside from Trump, the former New York City mayor is probably the most well-known figure on the list. Once famous for rallying New Yorkers after the 9/11 attacks, Guiliani is now infamous for wild-eyed rants about the stolen election, Philadelphia’s Four Seasons Landscaping, and that unfortunate dye-dripping episode.
Giuliani was intimately involved with Trump’s stolen-election claims and his schemes to overturn them. According to the Daily Beast, Giuliani’s 13 charges are the most of any single defendant in the group. Among them:
- Violation of the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act;
- Solicitation of violation of oath by public officer;
- False statements and writings;
- Conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer;
- Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree; and
- Conspiracy to commit false statements and writings.
It was reportedly Giuliani who urged Trump to falsely declare victory on election night. Giuliani became a primary spokesperson for Trump’s fraud claims, whether on Fox News or at a field hearing called by Pennsylvania Republican legislators loyal to Trump. Giuliani falsely accused Georgia election workers, by name, of fraud, leading to their harassment by Trump supporters.
Giuliani was also active behind the scenes. He joined conspiracy theorists who were snuck into the White House in December 2020 to urge Trump to make fellow “Team Crazy” lawyer Sidney Powell a special counsel.
Giuliani also pressured the Republican former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers to decertify the state’s Biden electors, even though Giuliani admitted, “We’ve got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence.”
According to the Georgia indictment, Giuliani was also deeply involved in the scheme to certify false electors as a way to disrupt congressional affirmation of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
A White House aide told the Jan. 6 committee that Giuliani told her a few days before the insurrection to “get excited” about what was going to happen that day.
