Atlanta D.A. Requests Special Grand Jury in Trump Election Inquiry

A district attorney in Atlanta on Thursday asked a judge to convene a special grand jury to help a criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

The inquiry is seen by legal experts as potentially perilous for the former president. The grand jury request from the district attorney in Fulton County, Fani T. Willis, had been expected after crucial witnesses refused to participate voluntarily. A grand jury could issue subpoenas compelling those witnesses to provide information.

The distinction of a special grand jury is that it would focus exclusively on the Trump investigation, while regular grand juries handle many cases and cannot spend as much time on a single one. The Georgia case is one of two active criminal investigations known to involve the former president and his circle; the other is the examination of his financial dealings by the Manhattan district attorney.

“The District Attorney’s Office has received information indicating a reasonable probability that the State of Georgia’s administration of elections in 2020, including the State’s election of the President of the United States, was subject to possible criminal disruptions,” Ms. Willis wrote in a letter to Christopher S. Brasher, the chief judge of the Fulton County Superior Court; the letter was first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Judge Brasher declined to comment.

Ms. Willis added, “We have made efforts to interview multiple witnesses and gather evidence, and a significant number of witnesses and prospective witnesses have refused to cooperate with the investigation absent a subpoena requiring their testimony.”

The inquiry is the only criminal case known to have been taken up by a prosecutor that focuses directly on Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. It is set to play out in a state taking center stage in the nation’s battle over voting rights, and one where a heated Republican primary for governor is testing Mr. Trump’s strength as a kingmaker in the Republican Party.

If the investigation proceeds, legal experts say that the former president’s potential criminal exposure could include charges of racketeering or conspiracy to commit election fraud.

The inquiry centers on Mr. Trump’s actions in the two months between his election loss and Congress’s certification of the results, including a call he made to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, to pressure him to “find 11,780 votes” — the margin by which Mr. Trump lost the state.

Ms. Willis said that Mr. Raffensperger was among those who had refused to cooperate without a subpoena.

“We already have cooperated,” Mr. Raffensperger said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday. “Any information that they’ve requested, we sent it to them. And if we’re compelled to come before a grand jury, obviously, we will follow the law and come before a grand jury and testify.”

Representatives for Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday, but the former president did release a statement characterizing his phone call with Mr. Raffensperger as “perfect.” He has cast other investigations, including one being conducted by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, as politically motivated. Fulton is the most populous county in Georgia and a Democratic stronghold, and Ms. Willis is a Democrat.

The Georgia inquiry is one of several criminal, civil and congressional investigations focused on Mr. Trump. He and his allies have been sparring in court with the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The committee won a major victory on Wednesday when the Supreme Court refused a request from Mr. Trump to block the release of White House records, and on Thursday, the panel asked Ivanka Trump to cooperate in the inquiry.

In addition to the criminal inquiry being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney, Ms. James is leading a civil fraud investigation into Mr. Trump’s business empire. She has issued subpoenas seeking interviews with two of his adult children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and her office previously interviewed a third, Eric Trump.

In Atlanta, Ms. Willis said last year that she would consider racketeering charges, among others. An analysis released last year by the Brookings Institution that has been studied by Ms. Willis’s office concluded that Mr. Trump’s postelection conduct in Georgia had put him “at substantial risk of possible state charges,” including racketeering, election fraud solicitation, intentional interference with performance of election duties and conspiracy to commit election fraud.

“Anything that is relevant to attempts to interfere with the Georgia election will be subject to review,” Ms. Willis told The New York Times last year.

Ms. Willis has experience in complex racketeering cases. In 2014, as an assistant district attorney, she helped lead a racketeering case against a group of educators involved in a cheating scandal in the Atlanta public schools.

A racketeering case involving the 2020 election would require prosecutors to detail an organized effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to influence and overturn the outcome. One ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, called Mr. Raffensperger in November 2020 and asked whether all mail-in votes could be thrown out in counties with high rates of challenged ballot signatures. In December 2020, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, appeared before state legislative committees, repeating conspiracy theories and pressing for the appointment of an alternative, pro-Trump slate of electors.

Later that month, Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, made an unannounced visit to Cobb County, with Secret Service agents in tow, to view an election audit in process. Around the same time, Mr. Trump called Mr. Raffensperger’s chief investigator, asking her to find “dishonesty” in the election. He also called Chris Carr, the state’s attorney general, and asked him not to oppose a lawsuit filed by the Texas attorney general challenging the election results in Georgia and other states.

Even if Ms. Willis won a conviction, it would have to survive review by the state’s appellate courts, which are controlled by Republican appointees.

Mr. Trump is seeking to oust Republican leaders in the state whom he sees as insufficiently loyal. He endorsed Representative Jody Hice to run against Mr. Raffensperger in this year’s secretary of state primary, and he backed former Senator David Perdue’s primary challenge to Gov. Brian Kemp. The Republican nominee will face Stacey Abrams, one of the nation’s most prominent voting rights advocates, in the general election.

It remains to be seen how much of an issue a potential prosecution of Mr. Trump could become in that race. A new governor would not have pardon power. In Georgia, that power is held by a state board, whose members are appointed by the governor to staggered seven-year terms.

Richard Fausset contributed reporting.