The power of the presidency always lures those seeking reflected glory. And Donald Trump’s riotous palace court – renowned for lax Oval Office walk-in privileges – was a pageant of characters who might normally have gotten nowhere near a president.

But the price for proximity to power in the most scandalous presidency of modern times came due just before midnight on Monday when 18 of Trump’s former aides, officials, lawyers and associates were indicted alongside him over their efforts to subvert the 2020 election in Georgia. They were the latest members of the former president’s inner circle to find out that associating with Trump could put them on cracking legal ice. At least until now, their patron has always seemed to skate free. But Trump is now staring up at his own astonishing mountain of 91 criminal charges in four separate indictments – an unparalleled and dubious record for an ex-president.

The list of co-defendants in the Fulton County case includes Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who became a hero on September 11, 2001, for filling a national leadership vacuum amid the worst terror attack on the US in history. Giuliani – who later served as Trump’s attorney and political fixer, notably in events in Ukraine that led up to Trump’s first impeachment – is now ironically charged with violation of Georgia racketeering laws, the federal version of which he used as a high-powered and pioneering prosecutor who took down mafia dons and their networks in the 1980s. The man once known as “America’s mayor” is also charged with multiple other counts including false statements and conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer.