Are there Rico charges against trump
Executive summary
Yes — former President Donald Trump was charged under Georgia’s RICO statute in a high‑profile state indictment unsealed in August 2023, but those Georgia racketeering charges were later dismissed by a successor prosecutor in late 2025, and reporting reflects continued dispute about the case’s future and legal correctness [1] [2] [3].
1. The original RICO indictment: what prosecutors alleged
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s August 14, 2023, indictment accused Trump and 18 co‑defendants of participating in a “pattern” of illegal conduct to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results and charged all 19 with racketeering under Georgia’s RICO law — an expansive state anti‑racketeering statute prosecutors used to tie together numerous alleged acts, from false electors schemes to pressure campaigns on state officials [1] [4] [5].
2. Why RICO was used and what it means legally
Georgia’s RICO law allows prosecutors to allege that multiple people acted as an “enterprise” committing a pattern of predicate offenses, and Fulton prosecutors said that tweets, texts, phone calls and coordinated actions fit that pattern; RICO does not require the alleged scheme to have succeeded to be charged, and Georgia’s statute carries potential prison terms typically described as between five and 20 years for violations [6] [4] [7].
3. The procedural tug‑of‑war and accountability questions
From the outset the case generated procedural fights — motions to sever defendants, appeals over venue and presidential immunity questions, and scrutiny of Willis’s conduct — leaving the case on hold at points and giving Trump’s team arguments to press for dismissal or delay while the indictment underwent motions practice and appeals [8] [9].
4. Sources of pushback: critics on venue, scope and precedent
Legal critics and some commentators argued Georgia’s RICO reach was an awkward fit for conduct that largely occurred in Washington, D.C., and questioned whether state law was the right tool for alleged federal‑centric acts; a successor prosecutor later concluded that the prosecution was improperly conceived for Georgia, echoing that venue critique [2] [10].
5. The dismissal: how the RICO charges ended in Georgia (as of late 2025 reporting)
Reporting from multiple outlets states that the final criminal charges in the Georgia election case, including the state RICO counts against Trump and co‑defendants, were dismissed after Special Prosecutor Pete Skandalakis asked the court to drop the indictment in November 2025, noting issues with the case’s conception and legal footing in Georgia [3] [2].
6. Broader context and what remains unsettled
Even with the Georgia RICO charges dropped in that phase, related legal threads persisted — separate federal and state indictments in other jurisdictions, ongoing litigation over prosecutorial conduct, and political fallout — and observers cautioned that outcomes elsewhere or new prosecutorial decisions could alter the legal landscape; reporting also shows partisan outlets framing those developments differently, which requires reading original filings and neutral reporting to separate legal holdings from political spin [9] [10] [8].
7. Bottom line and reporting limits
The concrete answer: Trump was charged under Georgia’s RICO statute in 2023 (the indictment included a RICO count), but reporting shows those Georgia RICO charges were dismissed by a later prosecutor in November 2025; available sources do not document an ongoing federal RICO indictment against Trump in the materials provided here, and this account is limited to the documents and reporting cited [1] [2] [3].