If you had to Google a few of the 18 non-Trump defendants charged in Fulton County Monday with violating Georgia’s RICO Act, you’re not alone.
Some of them are nearly household names. Their roles in allegedly trying to pressure Georgia officials to throw out the 2020 election results and to otherwise interfere with election certification are publicly known and have been well documented, including through press reports, through the allegations in special counsel Jack Smith’s latest indictment, and through the House Jan. 6 Select Committee’s investigative work. Whats new, in these cases, is the Georgia grand jury’s accusation that some of these actions violated state law.
But others named in the indictment are little-known local GOP officials, pastors, party activists — even, in one case, publicists for rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. A whole cast of Trumpworld characters has been indicted in Willis’ state-level prosecution.
Here’s a brief rundown of each of the 19, and details on those you may not be acquainted with quite yet.
Donald Trump, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani
Donald Trump is identified by prosecutors as the head of a “criminal enterprise” which, they allege, had the sole aim of manipulating the 2020 election results, including in Georgia. Many of the events that prosecutors describe as Trump’s orchestration of the scheme have long been public. Trump faces 13 counts.
Former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani is depicted in the indictment as one of the central players in multiple facets of the election-overturning scheme. Like Trump, he faces 13 counts, six of which are tied to efforts to create a fake slate of Trump electors. He also faces charges related to his attempts to spread false claims about voter fraud in Georgia during three separate state legislature committee hearings. It was during those hearings that he allegedly pushed false claims of widespread fraud and tried to lobby Republican state lawmakers to get behind the fake electors plot, episodes the indictment details. He’s charged with a count of soliciting lawmakers to violate their oaths of office for those efforts.
In addition to the RICO charge that applies to all of the co-defendants, Trump’s former chief-of-staff Mark Meadows faces a charge of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer related to his alleged participation in events related to the now-infamous phone call in January 2021 in which Trump demanded that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “find” the votes necessary to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state, according to the indictment.
John Eastman, Ken Chesebro
Both attorneys are often referred to as key architects of the fake electors scheme, and are cited in the indictment for the ways in which that scheme played out in Georgia. Both John Eastman and Ken Chesebro face conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer charges for their roles in various elements of the scheme. Eastman also had a hand in trying to pressure then Vice President Mike Pence to not certify the vote on Jan. 6 and, prosecutors allege, helped Giuliani urge state legislatures to appoint pro-Trump electors.
Jeffrey Clark
Jeffrey Clark, a Department of Justice official and stalwart Trump ally, was preoccupied in the final days of 2020 with sending a letter to officials in Georgia to inform them that the DOJ had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia,” according to the indictment. The letter also would’ve requested that officials not certify its election results until the Justice Department had had a chance to investigate baseless claims of election fraud. Trump was, as was confirmed in the House Jan. 6 select committee hearings, hoping to appoint Clark as acting attorney general to lead such an investigation, but ultimately didn’t do that upon protest from DOJ officials. This alleged scheme caught prosecutors’ attention; the indictment actually includes a line from that letter, which was not ultimately sent.
Jenna Ellis
Jenna Ellis was Giuliani’s right-hand woman as he traveled to state legislatures attempting to convince Republican lawmakers to go along with the fake electors scheme, according to media reports and details of those hearings outlined in the indictment. She also wrote a memo on December 31, 2020 that “outlined a strategy for disrupting and delaying the joint session of Congress,” according to the indictment. That strategy involved having Pence block the certification of the results.
Ray Smith
A lawyer who was hired to be part of Trump’s legal team in Georgia, Smith appeared at all three of the hearings with Giuliani and helped promote false claims about dead voters, according to the indictment and local reports at the time. Smith played a key role in these hearings, prosecutors allege; he testified that more than 130,000 illegal votes had been cast in Georgia in the 2020 election. He also helped gather and question Trump team witnesses in an attempt to back up the false fraud claims, the indictment alleges.
Robert Cheeley
Robert Cheeley, an attorney, faces 10 charges, most of which are tied to the fake electors plot. He appeared at the same Georgia legislative subcommittee hearings and was the lawyer who raised false claims that “election workers at State Farm Arena ordered poll watchers and members of the media to leave the tabulation area on the night of November 3, 2020” in order to overcount Biden votes, the indictment said. He also faces one count of perjury for allegedly making at least one false statement to the grand jury on September 15, 2022 about his communications with Eastman and/or his knowledge of a December 14, 2020 meeting of Trump presidential elector nominees in Georgia, per the indictment.
Mike Roman
A campaign aide at the time, Mike Roman faces charges related to the fake electors scheme as well. Roman helped orchestrate the unofficial “ceremonies” for the slate of false pro-Trump electors, according to reports.
David Shafer, Shawn Still
These are two of the 16 false pro-Trump electors who signed documents on December 14, 2020 claiming to be presidential electors in the state of Georgia. They are indicted for their actions as false electors, among other charges. Shawn Still is a sitting state senator who used to serve as the finance chairman for the Georgia Republican Party. David Shafer is a former Georgia state senator who recently left his position as chairman of the state’s Republican Party. He faces the same charges as Still but is also accused of lying to Fulton County prosecutors on April 25, 2022 about his communications with other fake electors, claiming to prosecutors that he did not “call each of the individual members and notify them of the meeting or make any of the other preparations necessary for the meeting,” the indictment says.
Cathleen Latham
Cathleen Latham is a retired teacher who also signed documents as a false elector. She is the former chair of the Coffee County Republican Party and faces 11 counts, most of which are tied to the Jan. 7, 2021 breach at a Coffee County elections facility. As CNN has reported, she he was allegedly spotted allowing employees of a tech firm — allegedly hired by Trump lawyer Sidney Powell — to enter the building that day. The equipment was later breached and copies were made of election data, per the indictment.
Sidney Powell
Among other charges related to her work on Trump’s legal team, Sidney Powell is also charged with violating Georgia election laws and conspiracy to commit election fraud related to the Coffee County breach. She worked with other Trump lawyers to argue that the federal government had the authority to seize voting machines and, according to the indictment, paid a tech data firm in Fulton County “for the performance of computer forensic collections and analytics on Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Michigan and elsewhere.” That work ultimately resulted in the illegal breach in Coffee County when forensic experts copied election data there.
Scott Hall, Misty Hampton
Both face charges related to the Coffee County breach as well. Scott Hall is a Georgia bail bondsman and another one of the individuals whom Latham allegedly welcomed into the Coffee County elections office on January 7, according to the indictment and media reports. He faces charges related to efforts to illegally breach the voting machine equipment. Misty Hampton was a Coffee County elections supervisor who posted a video that went viral making false claims about Dominion Voting Machines, the Washington Post reported in May 2022. She was present when the Powell-hired forensics team copied data from the Coffee County machines and faces charges for her alleged involvement in giving others access to the elections office later in January, according to the indictment.
Stephen Lee, Harrison Floyd, Trevian Kutti
All three allegedly played a role in trying to influence Ruby Freeman’s testimony before the grand jury, prosecutors allege. Freeman was a Fulton County election worker. Per the indictment, Stephen Lee, a pastor from Illinois, allegedly went to Freeman’s home on two separate occasions to try to influence her grand jury testimony. He also allegedly contacted Harrison Floyd — a leader of the Black Voices for Trump group — for help in talking to Freeman, apparently concerned she was “afraid to talk” to him “because he was a white man,” the indictment said.
Floyd then allegedly helped Lee try to convince Freeman to make false statements about Election Day operations. Trevian Kutti, a former publicist for Ye, was recruited by Floyd to travel from Chicago to Georgia and engaged in a series of bizarre attempts to persuade Freeman to meet with her — like calling her and telling her she was in danger, the indictment said — to try to influence her grand jury testimony.
