Willis, Fani T

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Electors Targeted in Georgia Criminal Inquiry

      by

      A prosecutor in Atlanta is investigating interference in the 2020 presidential election, an inquiry that has engulfed Donald J. Trump and many of his allies.Prosecutors in Atlanta have informed 16 Trump supporters who formed an alternate slate of 2020 presidential electors from Georgia that they could face charges in an ongoing criminal investigation into election interference, underscoring the risk of criminal charges that Donald J. Trump and many of his allies may be facing in the state.The revelations were included in court filings released on Tuesday in an investigation being led by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County. They showed that while much attention has been focused on the House hearings in Washington into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and the extent to which the Justice Department will investigate, it is a local prosecutor in Atlanta who may put Mr. Trump and his circle of allies in the most immediate legal peril.“This is a sign of a dramatic acceleration of her work,” said Norman Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment. He added that prosecutors typically work their way “up the food chain, so usually the first wave of target letters is not the last.”A special grand jury is looking into a range of potential issues, including the creation of a slate of 16 pro-Trump electors in the weeks after the election in an attempt to circumvent President Biden’s victory in the state. The district attorney is seeking testimony from a number of Mr. Trump’s lawyers and allies, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has emerged as a central figure in the case, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, whose lawyers agreed on Tuesday to have their objections heard in a court in Georgia instead of South Carolina or Washington.Some legal observers have argued that Mr. Trump’s actions put him at risk of being indicted on charges of violating relatively straightforward Georgia criminal statutes, including criminal solicitation to commit election fraud — most notably his postelection phone calls to Georgia officials like Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, whom he pressured “to find 11,780 votes,” enough to reverse the election results. A 114-page Brookings Institution analysis of the case, co-authored by Mr. Eisen, found Mr. Trump “at substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes.”Ms. Willis, in court filings, has indicated that a number of other charges are being considered, including racketeering and conspiracy, which could take in a broad roster of Trump associates both inside and outside of Georgia. Ms. Willis is also weighing whether to subpoena Mr. Trump himself and seek his testimony, according to a person familiar with the inquiry, as she has recently sought the testimony of seven of his allies and advisers before the special grand jury.Lawyers for 11 of the electors reacted strongly to the designation of their clients as targets, saying that a local prosecutor had no jurisdiction to determine which federal electors were fake and which were real. The lawyers, Holly A. Pierson and Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow, accused Ms. Willis of “misusing the grand jury process to harass, embarrass, and attempt to intimidate the nominee electors, not to investigate their conduct.”Ms. Willis’s office did not immediately comment, but she has said that “anything that is relevant to attempts to interfere with the Georgia election will be subject to review.”President Biden won Georgia and all 16 of its electoral votes. But after the election, some of Mr. Trump’s outside advisers came up with a plan to create slates of alternate electors in swings states like Georgia, falsely claiming that widespread fraud had disrupted the election in those states. Many of Mr. Trump’s White House advisers rejected the plan — and efforts to get Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of electoral votes on Jan. 6 — and viewed it as dangerous and illegal, testimony in the House hearings have shown.Two of the Georgia electors had already been identified as targets of Ms. Willis’s investigation: David Shafer, a Trump ally who chairs the state Republican Party, and Burt Jones, a Georgia state lawmaker who is running for lieutenant governor.David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressState Senator Burt Jones, a candidate for lieutenant governor.Pool photo by Brynn AndersonThe lawyers for 11 of the electors, including Mr. Shafer, accused Ms. Willis of politicizing the investigation and said that many “of the nominee electors are prominent figures in the Georgia G.O.P.” The electors include Mark Amick, who serves on the board of the Georgia Republican Foundation, a group of the party’s large donors; Vikki Consiglio, the party’s assistant treasurer; Shawn Still, who won a primary for a State Senate seat earlier this year; Brad Carver, an Atlanta lawyer; and Kay Godwin, the co-founder of a group called Georgia Conservatives in Action.Most of the electors were supposed to testify before the special grand jury next week. But in late June, Ms. Pierson and Ms. Debrow wrote in their filing that they were told by a special prosecutor that their 11 clients were considered targets — not just witnesses — in the investigation, after new evidence had come to light.“There is no legal or factual basis to label the nominee electors as targets of this or any grand jury,” the lawyers said. “Nonetheless, the D.A. has rashly elevated them from witnesses to targets, and the nominee electors have informed her of their intention to follow our legal counsel to invoke their state and federal constitutional and statutory rights not to provide substantive testimony.”“It’s bizarre,” said Clark D. Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta. “They’re arguing their case now, even though none of their clients have been indicted. The purpose of this motion appears to be to ask a judge to decide in advance of a grand jury decision that a grand jury can’t even indict them.”But the lawyers asserted that “states (and their local governments) have no authority to interfere (through attempted criminalization or otherwise) with the process of sending potential elector slates to Congress for it to adjudicate.” They also pointed to the 1960 presidential election in Hawaii, where both the Nixon and Kennedy campaigns submitted electors, in asserting that there was precedent for more than one slate of electors.Mr. Jones, in a motion earlier this week, called for Ms. Willis to recuse herself, because she has headlined fund-raisers for Charlie Bailey, a Democrat who is running against Mr. Jones.Ms. Willis rejected that idea in a filing on Tuesday.“The subject of the grand jury investigation that has ensnared Jones has no factual connection to the ongoing campaign for lieutenant governor,” she wrote, adding that “support for a political opponent” is “not among the extremely rare instances where a prosecutor is shown to have a personal interest in a prosecution.”The filing also said that Mr. Jones had “been treated identically to each of the 15 other unofficial ‘electors’ who represented themselves as properly certified electors for the 2020 presidential election and who received similar target status notification.”The potential legal exposure of the Republican officials could complicate Georgia’s November elections, starting with the lieutenant governor’s race. Last week, Mr. Bailey accused Mr. Jones of being “anti-American and unpatriotic” for taking part in a “failed attempted overthrow of the American government.”The investigation has also highlighted divisions within Republican ranks. Mr. Shafer has been a stalwart supporter of Mr. Trump and his baseless claims of a stolen election, which have put him at odds with Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, as well as Mr. Raffensperger. Both Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger easily defeated Trump-backed primary challengers this year.Representative Jody Hice, who lost in a May primary to Mr. Raffensperger, revealed this week that he had been subpoenaed in the investigation. A loyal Trump ally, he led a January 2021 challenge in the House of Representatives to the certification of Georgia’s electors. He is seeking to challenge the subpoena in federal court.The biggest question looming over the investigation, of course, is the potential exposure of Mr. Trump himself.“She’s made clear that she has a sharp eye on Trump,” Mr. Eisen said of Ms. Willis, adding that there were indications “that this first salvo of target letters will be followed by additional possible targets, culminating in the former president himself.” More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Georgia Congressman Jody Hice Subpoenaed in Trump Inquiry

      by

      Representative Jody Hice has been one of the most vocal proponents of false claims that Donald J. Trump won the 2020 presidential election.ATLANTA — Representative Jody Hice revealed on Monday that he had been subpoenaed in an ongoing criminal investigation by prosecutors in Georgia into election interference by Donald J. Trump and his allies.It is unclear what kind of information prosecutors are seeking, but Mr. Hice, a Republican, has been one of the most conspicuous proponents of false claims that Mr. Trump was the winner of the 2020 presidential election.Mr. Hice, whose district is east of Atlanta, is seeking to challenge the subpoena in federal court, arguing in a new legal filing that his status as a congressman gives him special protections from state proceedings. He has been a stalwart ally of Mr. Trump and led a January 2021 challenge in the House of Representatives to the certification of Georgia’s electors. Earlier this year, he lost a Trump-backed primary challenge to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who has had a fractious relationship with the former president.The subpoena, included in the court filing, demands Mr. Hice’s presence on Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. before the special grand jury in a downtown Atlanta courtroom.Loree Anne Paradise, a lawyer for Mr. Hice, could not be reached for comment on Monday.Earlier this month, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has also been subpoenaed in the inquiry, went to federal court to try to shield himself from testifying.Donald Trump, Post-PresidencyThe former president remains a potent force in Republican politics.Grip on G.O.P.: Donald J. Trump is still a looming figure in his party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Losing Support: Nearly half of G.O.P. primary voters prefer someone other than Mr. Trump for president in 2024, a Times/Siena College poll showed.Looking for Cover: Republicans are bracing for Mr. Trump to announce an unusually early 2024 bid, a move intended in part to shield him from the damaging revelations emerging from the Jan. 6 investigations.Endorsement Record: While Mr. Trump has helped propel some G.O.P. candidates to primary victories, he’s also had notable defeats. Here’s where his record stands so far in 2022.A Modern-Day Party Boss: Hoarding cash, doling out favors and seeking to crush rivals, Mr. Trump is behaving like the head of a 19th-century political machine.The investigation is being led by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, which encompasses most of Atlanta, and has already entangled a number of Mr. Trump’s allies. Several members of the legal team that worked with the 2020 Trump campaign have received subpoenas, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, John Eastman, Cleta Mitchell and Jenna Ellis.David Shafer, a Trump ally who chairs the state Republican Party, has been sent a letter informing him that he is a target of the inquiry and could be indicted, as have two state lawmakers. The special grand jury is looking into a range of potentially criminal acts, including the selection of a slate of pro-Trump electors in the weeks after the election and Mr. Trump’s now-famous call to Mr. Raffensperger asking him to “find” nearly 12,000 votes that would reverse his loss there.Mr. Hice helped lead efforts in Congress to keep Mr. Trump in power. On Dec. 21, 2020, Mr. Hice posted on Twitter about meetings that he and other pro-Trump lawmakers had that day with Mr. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. Trump’s legal team. “I will lead an objection to Georgia’s electors on Jan 6,” Mr. Hice wrote. “The courts refuse to hear the President’s legal case. We’re going to make sure the People can!”Mr. Hice is a preacher, former radio talk show host and former vice president of the Georgia Baptist Convention. He has written that the separation of church and state is an “erroneous idea,” and he made controversial statements about women and gay and lesbian people.Mr. Hice’s lawyer is seeking to have the matter of the subpoena fought in federal court, citing federal law that allows for members of Congress and other officials to move legal entanglements at the state level to the federal courts.Mr. Graham’s lawyers are already challenging his subpoena in federal court in Washington. They have argued that the Speech and Debate clause of the United States Constitution protects members of Congress from participating in such inquiries, though it generally does not shield political activities. Mr. Graham called Mr. Raffensperger on two occasions in November 2020 to inquire about invalidating certain mail-in ballots to aid Mr. Trump.Ms. Willis is also weighing whether to subpoena Mr. Trump in her investigation, and has said that “anything that is relevant to attempts to interfere with the Georgia election will be subject to review.” More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Prosecutor Warns Georgia Officials They May Face Charges in Trump Inquiry

      by

      The investigation could prove to be one of the most perilous legal problems facing the former president and his allies.ATLANTA — The breadth, speed and seriousness of the criminal investigation into election meddling by former President Donald J. Trump and his associates in Georgia were underscored on Friday by the revelation that two pro-Trump state senators and the chair of the state Republican Party were sent letters by an Atlanta prosecutor informing them they could be indicted, according to a person familiar with the inquiry.The Fulton County prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, is also weighing whether to subpoena Mr. Trump himself and seek his testimony before a grand jury, just days after she subpoenaed seven of his advisers, including Rudolph W. Giuliani and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, in an investigation into efforts to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia. The special grand jury is looking into a range of potentially criminal acts, including the selection of a slate of pro-Trump electors in the weeks after the election and Mr. Trump’s now-famous call to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, asking him to “find” nearly 12,000 votes that would reverse his loss there.The letters to David Shafer, the Georgia Republican Party chair, and State Senators Burt Jones and Brandon Beach were first reported by Yahoo News. Neither the men nor their lawyers could be reached for comment on Friday.The potential exposure of the Republican officials could have serious ramifications in Georgia’s November elections, where Mr. Jones is the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor. On Friday, his Democratic opponent, Charlie Bailey, released a statement accusing Mr. Jones of being “anti-American and unpatriotic” for taking part in a “failed attempted overthrow of the American government.”Mr. Shafer’s fealty to Mr. Trump and his baseless claims of a stolen election have put him at odds with Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, as well as Mr. Raffensperger, creating an unusual schism within the state Republican Party. Both Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger easily defeated Trump-backed primary challengers this year.The Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 8Numerous inquiries. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Giuliani and Graham Among Trump Allies Subpoenaed by Georgia Grand Jury

      by

      Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham, John Eastman and several others in the former president’s orbit were subpoenaed in the election meddling inquiry.Seven advisers and allies of Donald J. Trump, including Rudolph W. Giuliani and Senator Lindsey Graham, were subpoenaed on Tuesday in the ongoing criminal investigation in Georgia of election interference by Mr. Trump and his associates. The move was the latest sign that the inquiry has entangled a number of prominent members of Mr. Trump’s orbit, and may cloud the future for the former president.The subpoenas underscore the breadth of the investigation by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, which encompasses most of Atlanta. She is weighing a range of charges, according to legal filings, including racketeering and conspiracy, and her inquiry has encompassed witnesses from beyond the state. The latest round of subpoenas was reported earlier by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The Fulton County investigation is one of several inquiries into efforts by Mr. Trump and his team to overturn the election, but it is the one that appears to put them in the greatest immediate legal jeopardy. A House committee continues to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. And there is an intensifying investigation by the Justice Department into a scheme to create slates of fake presidential electors in 2020.Amid the deepening investigations, Mr. Trump is weighing an early entrance into the 2024 presidential race; people close to him have said he believes it would bolster his claims that the investigations are politically motivated.A subpoena is not an indication that someone is a subject of an inquiry, though some of the latest recipients are considered at risk in the case — in particular Mr. Giuliani, a personal lawyer for Mr. Trump who has emerged as a central figure in the grand jury proceedings in the Georgia investigation. Mr. Giuliani spent several hours speaking before state legislative panels in December 2020, where he peddled false conspiracy theories about corrupted voting machines and a video that he claimed showed secret suitcases of Democratic ballots. He told members of the State House at the time, “You cannot possibly certify Georgia in good faith.”Ms. Willis’s office, in its subpoena, said Mr. Giuliani “possesses unique knowledge concerning communications between himself, former President Trump, the Trump campaign, and other known and unknown individuals involved in the multistate, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”Though the subpoenas were issued Tuesday, not all had necessarily been received. Robert J. Costello, a lawyer for Mr. Giuliani, said, “We have not been served with any subpoena, therefore we have no current comment.”Others sent subpoenas included Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who worked closely with Mr. Giuliani to overturn the 2020 election results; John Eastman, the legal architect of a plan to keep Mr. Trump in power by using fake electors, and Mr. Graham, the South Carolina Republican who called the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, days after the election to inquire about the rules for discarding mail-in ballots.Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who worked with Rudolph W. Giuliani to overturn the 2020 election results, was also subpoenaed.Rey Del Rio/Getty ImagesAnother prominent lawyer who received a subpoena, Cleta Mitchell, was on a Jan. 2, 2021, call that Mr. Trump made to Mr. Raffensperger where he asked him to find enough votes to reverse the state’s results. The subpoena to her said, “During the telephone call, the witness and others made allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election in Georgia and pressured Secretary Raffensperger to take action in his official capacity to investigate unfounded claims of fraud.”Two other Trump lawyers were also subpoenaed: Jacki Pick Deason, who helped make the Trump team’s case before the Georgia legislature, and Kenneth Chesebro, whose role has come into sharper focus during the House Jan. 6 hearings in Washington. In an email exchange with Mr. Eastman in the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack, he wrote that the Supreme Court would be more likely to act on a Wisconsin legal challenge “if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.”Most of those subpoenaed could not be immediately reached for comment. A spokesman for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where Ms. Deason is a senior fellow, declined to comment.The special grand jury was impaneled in early May and has up to one year to complete its work before issuing a report advising Ms. Willis on whether to pursue criminal charges, though Ms. Willis has said she hopes to conclude much sooner. In official letters sent to potential witnesses, her office has said that it is examining potential violations that include “the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”The new subpoenas offered some further clues about where her investigation is focused.Mr. Eastman was a key witness at one of the December 2020 legislative hearings that were led by Mr. Giuliani. Ms. Willis’s office said in its subpoena to Mr. Eastman that during the hearing he had “advised lawmakers that they had both the lawful authority and a ‘duty’ to replace the Democratic Party’s slate of presidential electors, who had been certified as the duly appointed electors for the State of Georgia after the November 2020 election, due to unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud within the state.”John Eastman, a Trump legal adviser and the architect of the fake-elector plan, with Mr. Giuliani.Jim Bourg/ReutersThey called the appearance part of a “multistate, coordinated plan by the Trump campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”The subpoena also noted that Mr. Eastman “drafted at least two memoranda to the Trump Campaign and others detailing a plan through which Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, could refuse to count some of President Joe Biden’s electoral votes” on Jan. 6 — a plan that was rejected by Mr. Pence.Regarding Ms. Ellis, Ms. Willis’s office said that even after Mr. Raffensperger’s office debunked claims of fraud by election workers at an Atlanta arena, Ms. Ellis persisted. “Despite this, the witness made additional statements claiming widespread voter fraud in Georgia during the November 2020 election,” the subpoena said.Mr. Trump has derided the inquiry; last year, a spokesman for the former president called it “the Democrats’ latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump.”Sean Keenan More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Grand Jury Begins Trump Inquiry in Georgia With Up to 50 Subpoenas

      by

      The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., is weighing racketeering charges connected to G.O.P. attempts to overturn the 2020 election.ATLANTA — As many as 50 witnesses are expected to be subpoenaed by a special grand jury that will begin hearing testimony next week in the criminal investigation into whether former President Donald J. Trump and his allies violated Georgia laws in their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.The process, which is set to begin on Wednesday, is likely to last weeks, bringing dozens of subpoenaed witnesses, both well-known and obscure, into a downtown Atlanta courthouse bustling with extra security because of threats directed at the staff of the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis.Ms. Willis, a Democrat, has said in the past that Mr. Trump created a threatening atmosphere with his open criticism of the investigation. At a rally in January, he described the Georgia investigation and others focusing on him as “prosecutorial misconduct at the highest level” that was being conducted by “vicious, horrible people.” Ms. Willis has had staffers on the case outfitted with bulletproof vests.But in an interview on Thursday, she insisted the investigation was not personal.“I’m not taking on a former president,” Ms. Willis said. “We’re not adversaries. I don’t know him personally. He does not know me personally. We should have no personal feelings about him.”A special grand jury will begin hearing testimony next week in the criminal investigation into whether former President Donald J. Trump and his allies violated Georgia laws.Doug Mills/The New York TimesShe added that she was treating Mr. Trump as she would anyone else. “I have a duty to investigate,” she said. “And in my mind, it’s not of much consequence what title they wore.”Ms. Willis emphasized the breadth of the case. As many as 50 witnesses have declined to talk to her voluntarily and are likely to be subpoenaed, she said. The potential crimes to be reviewed go well beyond the phone call that Mr. Trump made to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on Jan. 2, 2021, during which he asked him to find enough votes to reverse the election results.Ms. Willis is weighing racketeering among other potential charges and said that such cases have the potential to sweep in people who have never set foot in Fulton or made a single phone call to the county.Her investigators are also reviewing the slate of fake electors that Republicans created in a desperate attempt to circumvent the state’s voters. She said the scheme to submit fake Electoral College delegates could lead to fraud charges, among others — and cited her approach to a 2014 racketeering case she helped lead as an assistant district attorney, against a group of educators involved in a cheating scandal in the Atlanta public schools.“There are so many issues that could have come about if somebody participates in submitting a document that they know is false,” she said. “You can’t do that. If you go back and look at Atlanta Public Schools, that’s one of the things that happened, is they certified these test results that they knew were false. You cannot do that.”Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, is likely to be one of the better-known figures to testify before the grand jury. His office confirmed on Friday that he and Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for the secretary of state’s office, had received subpoenas and planned to appear soon before the panel.In the Republican primary on Tuesday, Mr. Raffensperger defeated a Trump-endorsed candidate, Representative Jody Hice, who supported the former president’s false claims of election fraud.Mr. Raffensperger will now vie for a second term in the general election in November, in which he is hoping to benefit from the national name recognition, and bipartisan kudos, he received after standing up to Mr. Trump.Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, is likely to be one of the better-known figures to testify before the grand jury. Audra Melton for The New York TimesMs. Willis declined to divulge the names of witnesses who will be called before the grand jury. But two Democratic state senators, Jen Jordan and Elena Parent, said on Thursday that they had received subpoenas to appear. Both senators serve on a judiciary subcommittee that heard Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s lawyer at the time, give a presentation in December 2020 in which he laid out a number of baseless allegations of electoral fraud.The Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 8Numerous inquiries. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Georgia Jury to Consider Whether Trump Illegally Interfered in 2020 Election

      by

      The panel will have up to a year to recommend whether the prosecutor should pursue criminal charges against the former president and his allies.ATLANTA — As the criminal investigation of Donald J. Trump by Manhattan prosecutors appears to be stalling out, the separate investigation into whether the former president and his allies illegally interfered with Georgia’s 2020 election results took a significant step forward on Monday, as 23 people were chosen to serve on a special investigative grand jury.The panel will focus exclusively on “whether there were unlawful attempts to disrupt the administration of the 2020 elections here in Georgia,” Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of the Fulton County Superior Court told 200 potential jurors who had been called to a downtown Atlanta courthouse swarming with law enforcement agents.The ability of the special grand jury to subpoena witnesses and documents will help prosecutors, who have encountered resistance from some potential witnesses who have declined to testify voluntarily. The panel will have up to a year to issue a report advising District Attorney Fani T. Willis on whether to pursue criminal charges.Some legal experts have said the inquiry could be perilous for Mr. Trump, who, in a January 2021 phone call, asked Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to put Mr. Trump ahead of his Democratic rival, Joseph R. Biden Jr., in Georgia’s presidential election tally.The seating of the Georgia grand jury comes as a criminal inquiry in Manhattan has come to an apparent standstill. Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, is said to be concerned about the strength of the New York case, which focuses on whether Mr. Trump exaggerated the value of assets in annual financial statements. People close to the investigation have told The New York Times that the inquiry may lose steam if other witnesses do not step up to cooperate.In the Georgia case, a group of legal experts, in an analysis published last year by the Brookings Institution, wrote that the call to Mr. Raffensperger, and other postelection moves by Mr. Trump, put the former president at “substantial risk” of criminal charges in Georgia, including racketeering, election fraud solicitation, intentional interference with performance of election duties and conspiracy to commit election fraud.The investigation is also likely to look at Trump allies who inserted themselves into election administration matters in Georgia, including Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani; Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; and Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former chief of staff. The investigation is within the purview of the Fulton County district attorney because many of the actions in question took place in or involved phone calls to officials in Fulton County, which includes the State Capitol building in downtown Atlanta and numerous government offices.In addition to the call with Mr. Raffensperger, Mr. Trump has publicly described how he called Gov. Brian Kemp after the election and asked him to call a special election to “get to the bottom” of “a big election-integrity problem in Georgia.” Mr. Trump also called Chris Carr, the state attorney general, asking him not to oppose a lawsuit challenging the election results in Georgia and other states, and Mr. Raffensperger’s chief investigator, asking her to find “dishonesty” in the election.In January 2021, Mr. Trump asked Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to put Mr. Trump ahead in Georgia’s presidential election tally.Audra Melton for The New York TimesThe investigations into such matters were already underway, Judge McBurney said in court on Monday. “But now it’s time for 26 members of our community to participate in that investigation,” he said, referring to the 23 jurors and three alternates.Judge McBurney told potential jurors to announce that they had a potential conflict if they were convinced that a crime had definitely been committed in regard to the 2020 elections — or if they were convinced that no crimes at all had occurred. Roughly 25 said they had such a conflict.The special grand jurors will issue subpoenas, hear testimony and review documents. The meetings will be confidential, and jurors will not be allowed to discuss the proceedings outside of their meetings. But the judge noted that witnesses could speak about the proceedings publicly if they so wished.In January, a majority of the judges in the Fulton County Superior Court system approved Ms. Willis’s request for the special grand jury, allowing it to meet for up to a year beginning May 2. After the panel makes recommendations regarding criminal prosecutions, it will be up to Ms. Willis, a Democrat, to return to a regular grand jury to seek criminal indictments.Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University, said that impaneling the grand jury was a sign that prosecutors had acknowledged the complexity, sensitivity and unique nature of the case. Among other things, Ms. Willis has raised the possibility that Mr. Trump and his allies violated the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. Like the federal RICO law, which has been used to target the Mafia and other organized crime networks, Georgia’s state racketeering statute is a tool that can be used to go after a broad range of groups that take part in patterns of criminal conduct. Proving that case would require a deep examination of multiple moving parts.Among them, potentially, are a call that Mr. Graham made to Mr. Raffensperger asking whether mail-in votes could be discarded in counties with high rates of questionable ballot signatures; a visit Mr. Meadows made to suburban Atlanta to monitor an election audit there; and postelection appearances that Mr. Giuliani made before state legislative committees in which he asked for an alternative pro-Trump slate of electors to be appointed.“There’s a lot more than just the phone call,” said Mr. Kreis, who added that the case involved areas of the law that were “underdeveloped.”“We don’t have a lot of claims or potential claims that someone violated Georgia law by soliciting election fraud, because you’d have to be pretty crazy to go to the secretary of state’s office to demand a change in vote tabulations,” he said. “These are things so brazen it’s almost beyond belief.”Mr. Trump has other legal challenges to overcome in the wake of his one-term presidency, all of them taking on greater importance given the fact that he appears to be positioning himself to make another presidential run in 2024.The Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 7Numerous inquiries. More

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Will Trump Face a Legal Reckoning in Georgia?

      by

      Over 2,300 text messages to and from Mark Meadows, a former chief of staff for Donald J. Trump, offer stunning real-time details of the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Not least among the revelations are Mr. Meadows’s repeated overtures to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, with Mr. Meadows pressing the Georgian to be in communication with the White House.Mr. Trump and Mr. Raffensperger eventually spoke, resulting in Mr. Trump’s now-infamous demand that the secretary “find 11,780 votes” — just one more vote than Joe Biden’s margin of victory in the state.On May 2 we see the latest consequence of those efforts: the opening of a special grand jury by District Attorney Fani Willis in Fulton County, Ga., to gather evidence relating to possible criminal charges against Mr. Trump and others associated with him. As important as congressional investigations are, Ms. Willis’s work may present the most serious prospect of prosecution that Mr. Trump and his enablers are facing.We understand that after Robert Mueller’s investigation and two impeachments, the prospect of Mr. Trump actually facing accountability may be viewed with skepticism. Most recently, he seems to have avoided charges by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.But Ms. Willis, a Democrat, has a demonstrated record of courage and of conviction. She has taken on — and convicted — a politically powerful group, Atlanta’s teachers, as the lead prosecutor in the city’s teacher cheating scandal.And she is playing with a strong hand in this investigation. The evidentiary record of Mr. Trump’s postelection efforts in Georgia is compelling. It is highlighted by a recording of Mr. Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, call with Mr. Raffensperger, in which Mr. Trump exhorted Mr. Raffensperger to “find” those votes.The tape also contains threats against the secretary and his staff that had an element of coercion, like Mr. Trump’s warning that failing to identify (nonexistent) fraud would be “a big risk” to Mr. Raffensperger and to his lawyer. The recording is backed by voluminous evidence that Mr. Trump likely knew full well he had lost, including acknowledgment from administration officials like his attorney general, William P. Barr, and an internal Trump campaign memo admitting that many fraud claims were unfounded. As a federal judge noted in finding that Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election were likely criminal, the former president “likely knew the justification was baseless and therefore that the entire plan was unlawful.”What’s more, Georgia criminal law is some of the most favorable in the country for getting at Mr. Trump’s alleged misconduct. For example, there is a Georgia law on the books expressly forbidding just what Mr. Trump apparently did in Ms. Willis’s jurisdiction: solicitation of election fraud. Under this statute, a person commits criminal solicitation of election fraud when he or she intentionally “solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause” another person to engage in election fraud.The decision to impanel a special grand jury is itself another indicator of the peril Mr. Trump may face. Under Georgia practice, special purpose grand juries are typically used for focused investigation of a matter and have the power to subpoena witnesses. Special grand juries develop expertise in a single case over a sustained period (here up to 12 months), as opposed to regular grand juries, which hear many matters over a shorter period. Unlike regular grand juries, the special grand jury cannot issue an indictment, but any charging recommendations are presented by a district attorney to a regular grand jury, which can then indict based on the special grand jury’s work.The special grand jury will begin issuing subpoenas for some of the 30 or so witnesses who have refused requests for voluntary interviews. Those initial witnesses will then be served and will start appearing in June. Mr. Trump and those closest to him have a history of rushing to court to fight subpoenas, but they are unlikely to be given the opportunity in this first wave. Careful prosecutors usually start with less controversial witnesses, and Ms. Willis is a careful prosecutor. If Mr. Trump or those closest to him are served, that is when subpoenas are most likely to be challenged in court — but that is probably months away.If Mr. Trump is charged, it will set off a legal battle. There are substantial legal defenses that Mr. Trump could attempt. He could argue that he has constitutional immunity from prosecution for his acts while president, that his words were protected by the First Amendment or even that he acted in absolute good faith because he genuinely believed that he had won.The judicial system will ultimately decide if these defenses will work. But soliciting election fraud is not within the scope of official presidential duties protected by immunity, the First Amendment does not protect criminal activity, and a president cannot successfully claim good faith when he was repeatedly told by his own officials that there was no fraud. Still, no one should consider the case a slam-dunk.The case also in no way diminishes the importance of the House of Representatives’ Jan. 6 committee. In fact, the committee will most likely aid the Georgia prosecution while going about the business of its own investigation. (Ms. Willis and the committee have reportedly already been in contact.) For example, litigation with Mr. Meadows disclosed key details of the alleged plot to overturn the Georgia election. An email the committee filed from one of the lawyers helping Mr. Trump, Cleta Mitchell, included a detailed 11-point memo about overturning the election. Operating outside Washington, Ms. Willis might have taken years to obtain that email and other evidence like it.Jury trials, which both of us have tried and supervised, are living events, and success is never assured. But in Georgia, if it reaches that stage, the evidence is strong, the law is favorable, the prosecutor is proven, and the cause — democracy itself — is just.Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at Brookings and the executive chair at the States United Democracy Center, was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment and is the author of “Overcoming Trumpery.” Donald Ayer, a former U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration and deputy attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration, is an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law and on the advisory board of States United.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Georgia Prosecutor Investigating Trump Seeks Safety Assistance From the F.B.I.

      by

      The Fulton County district attorney expressed concern about the former president’s comments at a rally in Texas.ATLANTA — The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., who is conducting a criminal investigation of former President Donald J. Trump has asked for an F.B.I. risk assessment of the county courthouse in downtown Atlanta, citing “alarming” rhetoric used by Mr. Trump at a rally in Texas over the weekend.The Fulton County prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, is planning to impanel a special grand jury in May to look into accusations that Mr. Trump and his allies tried to improperly influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Among other things, the investigation is looking into a call that Mr. Trump 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, a Democrat, made her request for a security assessment in a letter on Sunday to J.C. Hacker, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Atlanta field office. Ms. Willis said that she and her staff had “already made adjustments to accommodate security concerns during the course of the investigation, considering the communications we have received from persons unhappy with our commitment to fulfill our duties.”But she also noted that Mr. Trump, at his rally in Conroe, Texas, on Saturday, made “multiple references to investigations that are known to concern his activities.” Ms. Willis’s request to the F.B.I. was reported earlier by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.At the rally, Mr. Trump said he would consider, if re-elected in 2024, pardoning people prosecuted for the attack on the National Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and told supporters to start protests in Atlanta and New York — where he is also facing civil and criminal investigations of his business — if prosecutors “do anything wrong.”Fani T. Willis, the prosecutor in Fulton County, Ga.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesMs. Willis noted that Mr. Trump told the crowd, “If these radical, vicious racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt.”She also noted that Mr. Trump said the investigations involved “prosecutorial misconduct,” and said the prosecutors were “vicious horrible people.” “They’re racist and they’re very sick,” he continued. “They’re mentally sick.”Ms. Willis is African American, as are Letitia James, the New York attorney general who is conducting a civil investigation of Mr. Trump, and Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, who inherited the criminal inquiry in New York from his predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who is white.Ms. Willis said the rhetoric was “more alarming” in light of Mr. Trump raising the possibility of pardoning the Jan. 6 protesters.“We must work together to keep the public safe and ensure that we do not have a tragedy in Atlanta similar to what happened at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” Ms. Willis wrote. More