ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia prosecutor is expected to file a grand jury indictment in the coming weeks as part of her investigation into the effort donald trump and his allies to reverse the former president’s 2020 election defeat.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis began investigating more than two years ago shortly after a recording of a was released Phone call in January 2021 Trump contacted the Georgia Secretary of State.
willis has strongly indicated that an indictment would be made between July 31 and August 18. One of two grand jurors sit The case is expected to be heard on July 11.
If Trump is indicted by a Georgia grand jury, it would add further upset ever-growing list of legal problems while he’s campaigning for the presidency. Trump is ready to go Trial in New York in March to face the state Fees related to hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign. And he has another trial scheduled for May on federal charges related to him Dealing with classified information. In those cases, he pleaded not guilty.
So is the Justice Department Examining the role of Trump in an attempt to halt confirmation of the 2020 election results in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. said Trump He’s been told he’s a target of this investigation, which probably overlaps with that in Georgia.
Details of the Georgia investigation that have become public have led to speculation that Willis is building a case under the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act that would allow her to indict numerous individuals as part of a potentially far-reaching plan.
Here are six investigative threads that Willis and her team investigated:
The Georgia investigation was prompted by the Call dated January 2, 2021 Trump turned to Georgian Foreign Minister Brad Raffensperger. Trump suggested the state’s top election official could help “find” the votes needed to place him ahead of Democrat Joe Biden in the state.
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, that’s one more than we have,” Trump is heard saying in a recording of the call leaked to news outlets. “Because we won the state.”
Trump insisted he did nothing wrong, repeatedly reiterating that the call was “perfect.”
Trump also called other senior state officials in an effort to recoup his 2020 election defeat, including: Governor Brian Kempthen Speaker of the House of Representatives David RalstonAttorney General Chris Carr and the top investigator in the Secretary of State’s office.
Also US Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina named Raffensperger shortly after the November election. Raffensperger said at the time that Graham had asked if he had the authority to refuse certain absentee ballots, which Raffensperger interpreted as a suggestion to exclude legitimately cast ballots.
Graham has denied wrongdoing, saying he just wanted to know about the signature verification process.
Biden won Georgia by a margin of less than 12,000 votes. A little over a month after the election, on December 14, 2020, a Group 16 was formed Georgia Democratic voters met in the Senate Chamber of the State Capitol to cast the state Electoral College votes for him. Each of them marked the ballots, which were counted and confirmed by a roll call.
That same day, in a Capitol committee room, 16 prominent Georgia Republicans — a legislator, activists, and party officials — met to sign an instrument falsely claiming Trump had won and proclaiming themselves “duly elected and qualified.” ‘ declared the state’s voters. They sent this certificate to the National Archives and the US Senate.
Georgia was one of seven contested states that Trump lost where mock Republican voters signed and presented similar certificates. Trump allies in the US House of Representatives and Senate used these certificates to plead for a delay or blocking of the election’s certification during a joint session of Congress.
Fulton County prosecutors have said in court filings that they believe Trump officials worked with state Republicans to coordinate and implement the plan.
The cross-state efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. Despite public pressure from Trump and his supporters then Vice President Mike Pence on January 6, 2021, refused to introduce the unofficial pro-Trump voters. After Attack on the US Capitol Forcibly stop the certification process, according to lawmakers certified Biden’s victory in the early hours of January 7, 2021.
At least eight of the bogus voters have since done so immunity agreements made with Willis’ team. And last summer a judge barred Willis from prosecution another, Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, because of a conflict of interest.
False allegations of voter fraud
In December 2020, Republican lawmakers in the state of Georgia held multiple hearings in the Georgia Capitol to investigate alleged problems with the November election. During these meetings was the former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies made unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud.
They allege that poll workers counting absentee ballots at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena instructed outside observers to leave, then pulled out “suitcases” of illegal ballots and began scanning them. Trump allies played snippets of surveillance video from the arena to back up their claims. State and federal officials investigated and said there was no evidence of voter fraud at the site.
Some Trump allies also said thousands of people who were ineligible to vote — including those convicted of felonies, those under the age of 18 and those who voted out of state — cast their ballots in Georgia. The Office of the Secretary of State has debunked these claims.
Alleged attempts to pressure poll workers
Two of the poll workers seen in State Farm Arena surveillance video, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, said they faced each other unrelenting harassment online and in person due to allegations by Trump and his allies.
Giuliani cashed last week that his statements about the two poll workers were wrong.
In a bizarre episode described by prosecutors in court filings, a woman traveled from Chicago to Georgia and met with Freeman on January 4, 2021. The woman initially said she wanted to help Freeman, but then warned that Freeman could face jail and tried to pressure her into falsely admitting to voter fraud, prosecutors wrote in court filings last year.
ACCESS TO VOTING DEVICES
Trump-allied attorney Sidney Powell and others hired a computer forensics team to copy data and software on voting machines in Coffee Countyabout 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, according to bills, emails, security video and witness testimony prepared in response to subpoenas in a long-running legal battle.
The then-county Republican Party leader — who also served as a sham voter — greeted them when they arrived at the local polling station on Jan. 7, 2021, and some county election officials were also present during the all-day visit. The Secretary of State’s office said it was “alleged unauthorized access” to voting equipment and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is looking into it at the Secretary of State’s request.
Two other men who have been active in challenging the 2020 election results also visited and spent hours in Coffee County later that month.
RESIGNATION OF US ATTORNEY
US Attorney BJay Pak, the chief federal attorney in Atlanta, abruptly resigned two days after Trump called Raffensperger and one day after a recording of that call was released. During that conversation, Trump called Pak a “never-Trumper,” implying that he did not support the president.
In December 2020, then-US Attorney General William Barr called for Pak to investigate allegations by Giuliani and other Trump allies of widespread voter fraud. Pak, who was appointed by Trump in 2017, reported back that he found no evidence of such fraud.
In August 2021, pack said the US Senate Judiciary Committeeinvestigating Trump’s actions after the election, said he resigned on Jan. 4, 2021 after learning from Justice Department officials that Trump did not believe enough was being done to investigate allegations of voter fraud, and that he wanted to recall him as a US attorney.
