1 year ago
A Georgia prosecutor appears on the verge of bringing criminal charges in her investigation into former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state.
Two witnesses confirmed Saturday that they will appear before a grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., early next week — the clearest sign yet that Fani Willis, the district attorney there, soon plans to ask the grand jury to approve criminal indictments against Trump or his allies.
If Trump is charged in Georgia, it would be his fourth indictment in the past five months. He is already facing federal criminal charges over 2020 election interference and his hoarding of classified documents, as well as New York criminal charges related to hush money payments.
The Fulton County indictment would cap off a yearslong investigation into the former president’s efforts to change the outcome of the Georgia election, which Joe Biden narrowly won. In the weeks after Election Day, Trump spread falsehoods online about the outcome, made a personal call to a state official asking to overturn the will of the voters and plotted using fake electors to falsify results. Willis launched the probe in early 2021.
“I can confirm that I have been requested to testify before the Fulton County grand jury on Tuesday,” Geoff Duncan, a Republican who was Georgia's lieutenant governor during the 2020 election, wrote Saturday afternoon on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “I look forward to answering their questions around the 2020 election. Republicans should never let honesty be mistaken for weakness.”
An Atlanta-area journalist, George Chidi, also posted on X that he was asked to testify Tuesday.
An indictment would likely follow soon after witness testimonies, perhaps as early as Tuesday afternoon or evening. Legal observers had expected that the charges would come down in mid-August.
At the beginning of the month, Trump was indicted on federal charges for conspiring against the U.S. in his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
On Truth Social, Trump has been railing against the Georgia investigation — and the other three indictments he has faced — as politically motivated, while also making unsubstantiated personal attacks against Willis.
“How can they charge me in Georgia?” he wrote on Saturday. “The phone call was PERFECT. WITCH HUNT!”
English (US)