The criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, part of his larger crusade to invalidate Joe Biden’s win at the time, appears to be gaining steam. Fani Willis, the Atlanta D.A. leading the inquiry, is expected to soon convene “a grand jury dedicated solely to the allegations of election tampering,” the New York Times reported Saturday, though the decision isn’t yet finalized. The news is the latest development in the investigation against Trump and his allies, which has been quietly moving forward since Willis opened it in February. If she convenes a grand jury, it would be a step toward holding the former president accountable for, among other things, pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s victory in the state.
The pace of the Georgia investigation has thus far been hampered by local issues demanding Willis’ attention, as well as a backlog of cases overwhelming her office. Willis’ team has looked to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot for backup, as congressional investigators are pursuing evidence that could be of considerable use to them. But that avenue has also been bogged down “by delays in the panel’s fact gathering,” according to the Times. Nonetheless, Willis appears ready to get the ball rolling. Convening a special grand jury focused solely on Trump’s attempts to interfere with Georgia’s election results would indicate “that her own investigation is ramping up,” the paper notes. A special grand jury would consist of 16 to 23 members and be able to issue subpoenas, though the Times adds that Willis “would need to return to a regular grand jury to seek criminal indictments.”
There are many charges the former president could be hit with in relation to his post-election conduct in Georgia, according to a recent analysis by D.C. think tank the Brookings Institution. They note that Trump made personal “entreaties to senior state officials”—from Secretary of State Raffensperger to Attorney General Chris Carr to Governor Brian Kemp, all of whom are Republicans—“to alter the outcome of a presidential election” whose results had already been certified. Among the crimes Trump could be charged with are “criminal solicitation to commit election fraud” and “state RICO violations,” the report concluded, an analysis based entirely on publicly-available data. Criminal liability could also extend to Trump allies who allegedly assisted Trump’s effort to subvert the results, the Brookings Institution notes, such as his former counsel Rudy Giuliani.
The probe in Georgia is not the only active criminal investigation the 45th president and his inner circle are facing. The D.C. attorney general is investigating Trump for inciting the attack on the U.S. Capitol, while the Manhattan District Attorney’s office is examining Trump’s financial dealings—a probe that has already produced numerous charges against the Trump Organization and its longtime CFO, with further indictments potentially on the way.
As my colleague Bess Levin recently noted, Raffensperger, a Republican, bolstered the potential case against the former president last week with the release of his new book. “I felt then—and still believe today—that this was a threat,” he wrote of Trump’s call asking him to “find” more votes. “For the office of the secretary of state to ‘recalculate’ would mean we would somehow have to fudge the numbers. The president was asking me to do something that I knew was wrong, and I was not going to do that.” Raffensperger has said he would “gladly participate” in an interview with Fulton County prosecutors investigating Trump’s alleged election meddling.
Also worsening the potential case against Trump is Trump himself, the Times notes, by adding commentary about his conduct in Georgia. At a rally in the state in September, the former president recalled to the crowd how he called Kemp about Georgia’s “big election-integrity problem” and asked him to “help us out and call a special election.” Norman Eisen, one of the authors of the Brookings Institution report, told the Times that, by elaborating on his original conversation with Kemp, Trump “offered the prosecution free admissions about the content of that exchange.”
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