The Georgia indictment handed down last night (which charges Donald Trump and 18 co-conspirators with 41 felony counts) is, in a word, breathtaking. It is 98 pages long, and it covers a wide-ranging conspiracy to defraud the voters of Georgia and overturn a free and fair election, with the ultimate goal of handing the state to the candidate who had lost. Unlike the federal election case against Trump, this one is all-encompassing, due to the nature of the Racketeering Influenced and Criminal Organization (RICO) charges (where a "big picture" of criminal activity is required). Also unlike the federal case, the biggest co-conspirators were charged with Trump, which includes (just to name a few prominent ones): Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Jeff Clark, and Sidney Powell. Or, to put it another way, this is the case we've all been waiting for. And by "everyone," I mean of course those of us who were and still are horrified that a sitting president would try to steal an American presidential election that he had clearly lost.

The bulk of the charging document details the RICO charge, which is the first Count (felony charge) listed. Count 2 doesn't start until page 72, because there is so much to get through in the RICO charge. There are 161 "overt acts" listed that weave together an entire web of lies and fraud and deceit and criminality that originated from the White House. These overt acts aren't all criminal acts, but they do tie the entire conspiracy together.

The story the charging document tells is a many-layered one. It all begins with Trump lying about the election results. It then fans out to all the henchmen who acted to change the outcome, by hook or by crook. Rudy Giuliani and others appeared before Georgia senate and house committees and lied their faces off. They tried to get the legislators to just chuck out the election results based on nothing more than rumors and conspiracy theories, and when that effort failed they put together their own slate of "fake electors." These fraudsters signed a forged document purporting to be the real and certified electors of the state. By doing so, they committed the crime of impersonating a public officer. This forged and fraudulent document was sent to Congress, to the National Archivist, and to a federal judge (mirroring the procedure for a real slate of electors). All to overturn the election results in Georgia.

An elections official was slandered by both Giuliani and Donald Trump himself, both of whom told outrageous lies about Ruby Freeman. Freeman was later the target of witness intimidation, which is included as a charge. The conspiracy reached from the president down to thugs trying to intimidate a woman who had just done her job, in other words.

The entire plot surrounding January 6th -- trying to get Mike Pence to somehow unilaterally declare himself the sole arbiter of an election -- is also covered. The draft document prepared by Jeffery Clark (which was supposed to go to Georgia officials and falsely stated that the Justice Department was investigating election irregularities in the state) is also included. As is the successful breach of elections equipment in Coffee County, where Trump minions illegally downloaded data from elections machines and spirited it away.

The indictment, as you can see, is definitely a "big picture" look at the criminal conspiracy. It reaches all the way up to the top and all the way down to specific crimes committed in furtherance of stealing an election in Georgia. Some of it may be easier to prove than other parts, but overall it paints a very complete picture of criminal wrongdoing.

Trump's "perfect" phone call to Georgia elections officials is the subject of two separate charges (Counts 28 and 29), and 13 lies Trump told during this call are enumerated:

1. That anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia;
2. That thousands of people attempted to vote in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia and were told they could not because a ballot had already been cast in their name;
3. That 4,502 people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia who were not on the voter registration list;
4. That 904 people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia who were registered at an address that was a post office box;
5. That Ruby Freeman was a professional vote scammer and a known political operative;
6. That Ruby Freeman, her daughter, and others were responsible for fraudulently awarding at least 18,000 ballots to Joseph R. Biden at State Farm Arena in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia;
7. That close to 5,000 dead people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia;
8. That 139% of people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Detroit;
9. That 200,000 more votes were recorded than the number of people who voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Pennsylvania;
10. That thousands of dead people voted in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Michigan;
11. That Ruby Freeman stuffed the ballot boxes;
12. That hundreds of thousands of ballots had been dumped into Fulton County and another county adjacent to Fulton County in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia;
13. That he won the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia by 400,000 votes.

These seem the easiest two charges to prove in the entire document, since all they'll have to do is play the recording of the call for the jury. We all heard what we heard on that call, and finally Trump is going to have to face the music for his "perfect" mob-boss threats and intimidation. Trump is charged with trying to get Georgia officials to break their oath of office and just "find" him 11,780 votes. That seems pretty open-and-shut to me.

Counts 38 and 39 deal with Trump attempting to do the same thing much later -- on September 17th, 2021 -- many months after Joe Biden was sworn in as president. Trump was still begging Georgia officials to just name him president somehow, by unlawfully "decertifying the Election, or whatever the correct legal remedy is, and announce the true winner." Trump continues to lie during this interaction, claiming: "As stated to you previously, the number of false and/or irregular votes is far greater than needed to change the Georgia election result." This, of course, was not even remotely true.

What's also interesting while reading the indictment is what isn't said. When you read between the lines, you can tell that the prosecution has most likely already flipped many of the people involved. For instance, while there were 16 fake electors in Georgia, only three of them are actually charged with a crime. The others have reportedly been given some sort of immunity deal (for their testimony, one assumes). There are a whopping thirty "unindicted co-conspirators" named throughout the document -- many of whom have also likely flipped and turned state's evidence.

This process may not even be complete. If people are found guilty of the RICO charge and jail time is handed down at sentencing, the minimum sentence the law dictates is five years in prison. That's a steep price for all the co-conspirators to be facing, and people are already speculating whether a few (or a bunch) of them will try to cut their own deals with the prosecution to avoid this steep minimum prison sentence. Which ones of them do flip is going to be very interesting, since each of them has knowledge of different parts of the overall scheme.

Fani Willis took her time bringing this indictment. She has been tirelessly investigating for over two and a half years now, she used a special grand jury to dive into all the details and then issue recommendations for indictments (which ate up a lot of time), and even though she said back in January that "charging decisions are imminent," that apparently meant "in seven months' time." One reason for the delays is that more and more witnesses volunteered to come forward as the investigation became more public. But even so, it has been a long wait.

We can only hope that taking all that time will eventually pay off. If Willis has nailed down as many aspects of this case as she can and made it all as legally bulletproof as possible then it will all have been worth it in the end.

During her very short late-night press conference after the indictment was released to the public, Willis indicated that she will be trying all 19 defendants at once. That is going to be a logistical nightmare. Just picturing how they're going to arrange seating for 19 people and all their lawyers is tough to do (maybe they've got extra-large courtrooms?). And each and every one of them will be filing motions and attempting to delay things (with Trump's legal team leading the pack, no doubt). Willis optimistically stated last night that she would like to see the case go to trial "in the next six months," but that seems almost impossible. Even getting the case to trial before next year's elections may be a stretch. And due to the complexity of the RICO charges, the trial itself could be a very long and drawn-out affair.

Willis made her prosecutorial choices, in bringing such sweeping charges, in indicting 19 people together, and in her intent to try them all at once. Legal experts are already weighing in on her choices, and no doubt will continue to do so throughout the entire experience. But ultimately she will be judged by how effective the strategy she has chosen will be in convincing a jury to unanimously convict both Donald Trump and all his co-conspirators.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant