Tomorrow, Monday, prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, will begin selecting members of a Special Grand Jury that will consider whether former President Donald Trump should be indicted for his attempts to pressure Georgia officials to overturn the results of the the 2020 elections.
Last January, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked a panel of judges to form a Special Grand Jury due to “information indicating a reasonable probability” that the election “was subject to potential criminal disruption.”
Willis has said the investigation includes a January 2, 2021 phone call in which Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, “I just want to find 11,780 votes.”
Trump lost the state to Joe Biden by that margin, a result ratified by multiple vote recounts.
Special grand juries are rare. They focus on a single investigation and can last much longer than typical grand juries.
This Grand Jury will have “an investigative approach appropriate to the complexity of the facts and circumstances involved,” Willis said in his January request. In it she wrote that “a significant number of witnesses and potential witnesses have refused to cooperate with the investigation in the absence of a subpoena requiring their testimony.”
Separately, he said in an interview that he will wait until after the May 24 state primary to issue subpoenas to public officials, which means the Special Grand Jury may not hear witnesses until June. “I don’t want anyone to say, ‘She’s doing this because she wants to influence the outcome of the next election,'” Willis said.
In February 2021, Willis notified at least four state officials of his investigation and sent document preservation notices to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and Attorney General Chris Carr.
Trump said in a Jan. 20 statement: “My phone call to the Georgia secretary of state went perfectly.”
A Trump spokesman claimed last Friday that an “illegal ballot-trafficking ring” had influenced the outcome of the Georgia election, referring to unsubstantiated claims Trump and his supporters often make.
“A Grand Jury should be opened for massive voter fraud in Georgia in 2020,” said Liz Harrington, Trump’s spokeswoman.
