A first co-defendant indicted by a Georgia grand jury in connection with former president Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election pleaded guilty on Friday.
Scott Hall is the first of 19 Trump allies who agreed to enter a plea in the case. Also the first defendant to turn himself in to authorities in Georgia in August, Hall pleaded guilty to “five misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
In August, Hall was accused of racketeering and loitering in a restricted area of an elections office in Atlanta when voting systems were breached in January 2021. The indictment alleged that he and other co-defendants “aided, abetted, and encouraged” workers from the forensics firm SullivanStrickler to access voting machines inside the Coffee County Board of Elections Registration office. Hall had been charged with racketeering and six felony counts of conspiracy. A bond order for $10,000 was initially announced for Hall.
As part of the plea deal, Hall agreed to testify in court hearings and trials concerning the larger election fraud case, in which Trump and his former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani face the most charges. He accepted five years probation, a $5,000 fine, 200 hours of community service and a prohibition on polling and election administration-related activities, according to the AJC. Hall promised to write a letter apologizing to Georgia voters for his role.
Trump pleaded not guilty in August following his indictment in Fulton County, Ga., on felony charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis convened the grand jury that unveiled the indictments.
On September 7, Trump told the state court presiding over his case that he was considering taking the trial to federal court. However, he later reversed course, deciding to stay in Fulton County’s jurisdiction for the trial.
Co-defendant Mark Meadows, chief of staff for former president Trump, in August filed an emergency motion to stop his state arrest as he attempted to remove his 2020 election case to federal court. A federal judge rejected his petition to stop arrest, and later also rejected his request to move the election-interference case from Georgia state court to federal court.