By An Atlanta grand jury that was investigating Donald Trump and allies of the former president for trying to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia voted to issue 10 criminal indictments on Monday night.
The names of the indicted individuals and the nature of the charges were not immediately made public in Fulton County Superior Court.
But a cover sheet on the documents indicated that the grand jury did not vote against charging anyone whose name was submitted to them by prosecutors for possible indictment on Monday.
Trump has said he expects to be indicted in the case.
After the grand jury voted, the indictments were taken to the courtroom of Judge Robert McBurney, who reviewed them silently to confirm they were all signed.
“Everything went as it should have in front of the grand jury?” McBurney asked a representative for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
“Yes, your honor,” that representative answered.
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Willis is expected to hold a press conference after the indictments are processed by the court clerk’s office, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
That could take between one and three hours, the newspaper reported.
Hillary Clinton, the Democrat who lost to Trump in the 2016 election, said on MSNBC on Monday, “It’s hard to believe it. I don’t feel any satisfaction. I just feel profound sadness that we have a former president indicted.”
“He set out to defraud the United States, and the citizens of our country,” Clinton told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.
Earlier, McBurney told reporters they would need to “wait and see” if charges will be filed by the end of the day.
As McBurney spoke, prosecutors were continuing to present testimony to the grand jury, in a sign the panel could be asked to charge Trump and others by the end of Monday, a day earlier than originally expected.
The journalist George Chidi, who had originally been summoned to testify on Tuesday, was told to be there Monday.
“Change of plans. I’m going to court today. They’re moving faster than they thought,” tweeted Chidi, who later was seen entering the courthouse.
But Chidi later said he had not testified, because prosecutors told him his testimony was not necessary.
Another expected witness Tuesday, former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican, was also called to testify on Monday.
On Monday morning, Jen Jordan, a Democratic former state senator and Georgia attorney general nominee, testified to the grand jury.
Another Democrat who had been subpoenaed, former state Rep. Bee Nguyen, likewise testified. She later revealed that she had given testimony about Trump’s campaign lawyer Rudy Giuliani and other attorneys who pushed false claims about ballot fraud in the state.
Nguyen in a statement said, “When I took my oath of office in 2017, I swore my allegiance to our Constitution and promised to protect and defend out State and our country.”
“On December 10, 2020, when Rudy Giuliani and the former President’s legal team appeared before the Georgia House of representatives, I upheld my oath and told the truth in the face of false testimony about our elections,” she said.
Trump appeared to be tracking the testimony of witnesses, and wrote in a social media post Monday that Duncan “shouldn’t” testify, calling him a “total disaster.”
Georgia criminal law makes it a felony to directly or indirectly try to deter a witness from testifying in any court or before a grand jury.
Trump, in a social media post, railed against the investigation, which is related to his efforts to pressure Georgia officials to reverse his loss to President Joe Biden in the state’s popular vote.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a phone call in early 2021, days before Congress was set to confirm Biden’s victory in the Electoral College.
In his Truth Social post on Monday, Trump wrote: “Would someone please tell the Fulton County grand jury that I did not tamper with the election.”
“The people that tampered with it were the ones that rigged it, and sadly, phoney Fani Willis, who has shockingly allowed Atlanta to become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world, has no interest in seeing the massive amount of evidence available,” Trump wrote.
Trump was indicted in early August by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., on charges that he conspired with others to overturn his defeat in the national election in 2020.
He has pleaded not guilty in that case.
Trump, who is seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, also has pleaded not guilty in two other criminal cases: a federal case in Florida related to retaining classified records after leaving the White House; the other for allegedly falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Follow our live coverage of Trump’s indictment on RICO charges in the Georgia election probe.
This is breaking news. Check back for updates.
