Meadows, Giuliani charged in Georgia probe of 2020 election interference

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani were among the co-defendants charged Monday in the investigation into efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

Meadows faces two charges: solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer and racketeering, a charge usually reserved for organized crime. 

Former President Trump, Meadows and the other 17 indicted individuals face racketeering charges under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

Giuliani, meanwhile, faces 13 charges, including false statements and writing, racketeering, conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiracy to commit filing false documents.

The indictment cites Giuliani’s efforts to get Georgia state officials to unlawfully appoint presidential electors from the state in violation of the terms of their oath of office. 

It also accuses Giuliani of making false statements and writing when he said at a Georgia Senate subcommittee meeting that at least 96,000 mail-in ballots were counted in the 2020 presidential election, despite there being no record of those ballots having been returned to the county elections office.

It also cites Giuliani’s claim that Dominion Voting Systems equipment mistakenly recorded 6,000 votes for President Biden instead of Trump.

Giuliani was one of the lawyers present for several previously reported meetings among Trump legal advisers pushing unproven claims of election fraud that were dismissed in court after the election. 

Meadows, meanwhile, kept a largely low profile after the 2020 election.

Last year, Meadows was ordered by a judge to speak before the Georgia special grand jury. 

Ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, he joked about false claims of voter fraud via votes cast by dead people, according to the Washington Post.

But after Jan. 6, the former chief of staff went largely off the grid, causing some to speculate he has played a role in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s federal investigation into Trump’s actions after losing the 2020 election.

Ella Lee contributed.