Trump is already defending several other cases – just a year before he hopes to reclaim the presidency.
A court in Georgia has charged Donald Trump with trying to illegally overturn the 2020 election.
Among the charges is ‘solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer’ in other words trying to persuade someone to betray their office.
It is the fourth set of charges against the former president.
Prosecutors brought 13 counts against Trump and his associates, including forgery and racketeering, which is most often used to target members of organised crime groups.
Ten other people have been charged including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump’s former lawyer and ex New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, another of Trump’s ex lawyers.
The court in Atlanta sat beyond usual working hours as a grand jury decided whether or not to charge the former president.
Trump narrowly lost to Joe Biden in Georgia and his lawyers, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, made false claims of election fraud.
Audio of a call by Trump to Georgia’s secretary of state also emerged in January 2021 in which he suggested election officials could “find” the votes he needed to win.
Trump is already defending several other cases – just a year before he hopes to reclaim the presidency.
The most serious concern allegations he plotted to overturn his election loss, laying the ground for the infamous US Capitol riots.
He denies the claims and says they are politically motivated.
In a statement, the Trump campaign said: “They could have brought this two and a half years ago, yet they chose todo this for election interference reasons in the middle of President Trump’s successful campaign.