Local prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, are actively investigating whether they can apply charges of “false declaration” against Rudy Giuliani and other members of Donald Trump’s team for their fraught attempts to meddle in the results of the 2020 state elections, according to a person known to the subject.
Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer and a a former mayor of New York City, twice presented Georgia lawmakers with false evidence and absurd allegations of a conspiracy theory to commit widespread electoral fraud. Separately, on two recorded calls to state election officials, then President Trump made specific false claims that the votes for him were discarded and the suitcases full of votes for Joe Biden were transported.
In a February 10 letter to state officials that was first made public by The New York Times, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis noted that her investigation includes – among other crimes – possible violations of Georgia laws that prohibit “making false statements to state and local government agencies”.
But so far, there has been no focus on the legal team’s efforts to exploit this specific criminal charge. Instead, the news addressed the prosecutor’s potential use of electoral fraud or extortion charges against Trump’s inner circle. The latter would require prosecutors to prove a pattern of corruption – similar to the way the police discover that mafia bosses run their subordinates. The idea here would be to prove that Trump and his lieutenants conspired in a “criminal company” to undermine a legitimate election.
Several former Georgia district prosecutors told The Daily Beast that investigators are likely relying on a state law that considers it a crime “knowingly and intentionally” to make a false statement about “any matter within the jurisdiction” of the state government. The criminal charge carries a penalty of one to five years in prison.
Applying this state law to the ex-president’s attorney would be a very rare strategy, say ex-prosecutors. But again, it was also the conduct of the Trump team after the election.
Fulton DA’s public integrity team is said to be focusing on the wild claims that Giuliani made to Georgia’s state legislators – an integral part of Trump’s multifaceted attempt to reverse the results of the 2020 elections by putting pressure on lawmakers and challenging the courts. Also under analysis: Trump’s numerous erroneous statements in his direct calls to Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger (first reported by The Washington Post) and his six-minute telephone chat with an election investigator (whose audio was made public by Wall Street Newspaper)
On Tuesday, the Daily Beast contacted attorney Cleta Mitchell, a member of Trump’s legal team who played a key role in the phone call with Raffensperger.
“I have nothing to say about this. I will deal with it at the appropriate time, ”said Mitchell. She and all the other participants in that call will be approached by Georgia researchers.
Trump’s advisers did not comment on this story, nor did Giuliani; New York City’s former attorney Joseph Sibley declined to comment Tuesday night. However, a person familiar with the matter said that the former president’s legal strategy to curb accusations of false statements would likely involve defending freedom of expression, although such discussions are preliminary at the moment.
This effort by a Georgia prosecutor is one of several government cases that Trump is facing now. New York State Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. are investigating the Trump Organization on potential insurance and bank fraud involving lucrative real estate properties across the country. Trump is also against several individual lawsuits that accuse him of sexual misconduct.
In recent weeks, Trump has remained, for the most part, publicly mute about this criminal investigation. Shortly after the investigation began, his senior adviser Jason Miller claimed that “this is simply the Democrats’ last attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump, and everyone realizes it.”
Giuliani, acting on behalf of Trump, went to the Georgia State Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on December 3, 2020 and exposed the false details of his allegation of electoral conspiracy.
Among its worst blatant lies: that the state counted 96,600 “ghost votes”. That’s the same crazy claim that fueled Sidney Powell’s attempt to overturn Georgia’s election results with his lawsuit called “Kraken” – which was promptly dismissed by a federal judge.
Giuliani also paraded several widely discredited witnesses, including a little-known cybersecurity consultant (and Republican candidate for Congress) who wrongly claimed that voting machines across the country in 2020 were technologically defective. Russ Ramsland’s claims were debunked by leading electoral security experts, who made it clear that his Texas company, Allied Security Operations Group, misinterpreted the technology inside the ballot boxes.
In addition, Giuliani played an edited clip of a surveillance video from the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, which he claimed to have proven irregularities in the vote count. This video was later analyzed by state election officials, who analyzed frame-by-frame with journalists to prove that there were no “mysterious ballot boxes.”
Giuliani repeated the effort a week later, on December 10, when he presented his case to the State Chamber’s Government Affairs Committee.
Former Georgia prosecutors told The Daily Beast that any use of accusations of misrepresentation would be a new – and difficult – task.
“I think it will clearly be a difficult climb,” said Kenneth W. Mauldin, who retired last year after 20 years as a public prosecutor in the area that covers the city of Athens.
If Fulton’s prosecutors pursue accusations of misrepresentation, said Mauldin, they will have to face jurors who erroneously believe in these electoral conspiracies – and would not think that such statements are really fake. He said defense lawyers could also try to bring in conservative Georgia lawmakers who don’t believe they lied.
Accusing someone with false statements for lying to lawmakers would also be unheard of, said Alan Cook, a former public prosecutor who served as director of the University of Georgia’s law school prosecution program for nearly two decades.
“It would be highly unusual to use the misrepresentation statutes in a circumstance like this,” he said. “In 13 years as a prosecutor, I probably only used the status half a dozen times. It is usually used when state or local investigators are investigating a crime and interviewing a witness who, intentionally and intentionally, gives false information that deceives investigators. ”
As in: pointing police officers in the wrong direction when looking for a fugitive.
However, Titus T. Nichols, a former violent crime prosecutor in Augusta, said that attacking Trump’s conspiracy theory team in Georgia on charges of misrepresentation is in line with the spirit of the law.
“This is precisely to stop people from doing this stupid thing – it’s a waste of government time,” said Nichols, who now teaches as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Georgia. “When you start to delve into ridiculous theories, you cross the line of ‘I’m giving my opinion,’ for ‘I’m giving false information on purpose. ‘”
Giuliani’s decision to present an edited video as false evidence of a false crime goes beyond that limit, explained Nichols.
“He knows he’s lying when he says that. There are no secret ballots. It is him presenting false information. And as he is a lawyer, it becomes even more clear that he is lying. As a lawyer, you can’t just come up with ridiculous theories, ”he said.
Nichols said Giuliani will be subjected to a higher standard because he is a lawyer – although whose professional status is under threat, as New York is now considering dismissing the man who was once a US attorney in Manhattan.
As difficult as it is to get the false statement charges to persist in Georgia, this approach has proven to be a reliable tool against Trump’s allies at the federal level. Former campaign advisor George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to making false statements in connection with the FBI investigation into the interference in the Russian elections. London lawyer Alex Van der Zwaan paid the price for lying to federal agents about communicating with Trump campaign vice president Rick Gates. And former Trump confidant Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to a bank insured by the federal government.
There is no indication that Giuliani committed what would be an entirely different crime: perjury. Prosecutors can prosecute someone who lies while testifying under oath, as witnesses are forced to do in a state court. But that is not the case here. In Georgia, people who testify before state Senate and House committees are not put under oath, officials from both chambers told the Daily Beast.
Former prosecutors said it would be much more difficult for investigators to make false accusations against Trump, because his lengthy ramblings were not formally presented to a government agency and, for the most part, made out of misconceptions that he did, in fact, win the election. .
“It’s almost like when someone is selling you a car. They’re going to say it’s a great car, ”said Cook.
Instead, in his letters to officials, the Fulton County District Attorney indicated that Trump and his team could face even more serious charges: requesting electoral fraud, conspiracy and extortion. As part of that effort, Willis even hired the lawyer who literally wrote the book on RICO’s state charges, John E. Floyd.
And at the heart of that investigation is Trump’s appeal to the state’s top voter in his January 2 call.
“So, look,” Trump said to Raffensperger. “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than us. “
Biden beat Trump in Georgia by 11,779 votes. The ex-president’s comment can be clearly understood to mean that he asked a Georgia state official to alter the results of an election – which is specifically listed as a first-degree crime. The latest election-related offense listed in the Georgia state code makes it illegal to ask anyone to be involved in fraud. The penalty is up to three years in prison.
Then again, that kind of behavior also violates federal law – as former US Attorney General Eric Holder quickly pointed out when the call went public. That is five years.