Georgia prosecutor to begin presenting case against Trump over 2020 election to grand jury
Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis appears poised to file criminal charges in her investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in that state, in what would be the fourth criminal case against the former president
Fani Willis, an Atlanta-area prosecutor investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his associates broke the law when they tried to overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat in Georgia, is expected to begin presenting her case to a grand jury early next week, CNN first reported.
Two witnesses confirmed Saturday that they will appear before a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, early next week, the clearest sign yet that Fani Willis, the district attorney, soon plans to ask the grand jury to approve criminal indictments against Donald Trump or his allies
Former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan reported via a social media post that he has been subpoenaed as a potential witness and will testify behind closed doors before a grand jury on Tuesday.
“I can confirm that I have been asked to testify before the Fulton County grand jury on Tuesday. I look forward to answering their questions about the 2020 election. Republicans should never allow honesty to be confused with weakness,” the Republican said.
Duncan was a longtime Trump supporter but after the 2020 election publicly broke with him.
Freelance journalist George Chidi was also quoted, “I just got a call from District Attorney Fani Willis’ office. I’ve been asked to come to court on Tuesday to testify before the grand jury,” he reported via Twitter, rebranded as X.
These subpoenas mark the first official confirmation that the prosecutor investigating the case is moving to seek charges and presumably indict Trump, more than two years after the investigation began.
Georgia law is different in that special purpose grand juries, which have broad investigative powers, cannot issue indictments. They can only approve or reject them, after they are made known to them.
The investigation into the attempt to overturn the Georgia election
The indictment by the Fulton County prosecutor’s office would culminate an investigation into the former president’s efforts to change the outcome of the 2020 election in Georgia, which Joe Biden narrowly won.
In the weeks after Election Day, Trump spread falsehoods online about the outcome, made a personal call to a state official asking him to overturn the will of the voters and planned to use fake electors to falsify the results. Willis launched the probe in early 2021.
Willis has hinted for months that he will seek multiple indictments in the case, using Georgia’s extensive racketeering statutes that allow prosecutors to not only charge wrongdoing in the state, but also to use activities in other states to prove criminal intent in Georgia.
After the news broke today, Trump referred to precisely that phone call, “How can they charge me in Georgia? The phone call was PERFECT. WITCH HUNTING!” said the former president, who remains convinced of the political persecution against him.
This could be the fourth criminal indictment against Trump
Last week Trump was indicted by a Washington DC grand jury on four counts for allegedly attempting to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election, culminating in the January 6, 2021 storming of the nation’s Capitol.
In addition, in New York Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in order to pay porn actress Stormy Daniels, with whom he had a past “affair,” for her silence during the 2016 election campaign.
And the other criminal case is in Florida, where he is charged with 40 counts of illegally subtracting and keeping classified White House documents in his Mar-a-Lago mansion.
Trump, the first former president to be criminally charged in U.S. history, faces these proceedings in the midst of the race for the White House in 2024, as the Republican Party’s favorite pre-candidate.
With information from EFE, CNN, The Washington Post and Politico