Former President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0is asking a court to dismiss several criminal charges against him in the Georgia 2020 election interference case.
His filings on Monday are Trump\u2019s opening salvo of legal arguments to challenge the state-level charges.
The filings indicate Trump wants to\u00a0adopt the legal arguments\u00a0his racketeering co-defendants\u00a0Rudy Giuliani,\u00a0Kenneth Chesebro\u00a0and\u00a0Ray Smith\u00a0have already made in court filings.
Giuliani filed his challenge Friday, asking Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to toss his indictment due to \u201cdeficiencies,\u201d his lawyers argued, that render it invalid. Chesebro, the pro-Trump lawyer who devised the \u201cfake electors\u201d scheme, filed a similar challenge last month that argued the indictment \u201cfails to sufficiently set out the charge or any violation of the law.\u201d
Smith, an attorney for Trump\u2019s 2020 campaign in Georgia, filed his extensive motion challenging the indictment also on Monday, arguing that the indictment had \u201cvoluminous\u201d defects and that the state failed to meet the racketeering statute.
Motions like these are common at the start of a criminal case, and they are rarely successful.
The former president is asking for the state charges to be tossed even as he has indicated in court filings that he\u00a0may ask for the case to be moved to federal court, where he can try to invoke protections for federal officials.
Trump faces 13 counts \u2013 including racketeering, conspiracy charges and soliciting a public official to violate their oath of office \u2013 in the\u00a0sprawling indictment\u00a0brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis last month against him and 18 co-defendants for their roles in attempting to reverse Georgia\u2019s 2020 election results. All 19 defendants \u2013 including Trump, Giuliani, Chesebro and Smith \u2013 have pleaded not guilty in the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n