Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis made her investigative intentions clear with a round of letters to Georgia state officials in February, asking them to preserve documents relevant to electoral interference while she investigated potential state crimes, including request for electoral fraud, conspiracy and extortion.
According to the letters, none of Georgia’s employees is the target of the investigation.
“What I was doing, as a courtesy to the people I respect a lot, was simply to let them know that when a grand jury met, which would be in March, they could receive subpoenas,” Willis told MSNBC in February.
Two grand juries are due to meet in Fulton County on Thursday, paving the way for Willis’ next phase in his investigation. A person familiar with the investigation said they are likely to rely heavily on subpoenas, rather than voluntary requests for records and interviews, in part to establish a clear court record of their search for evidence.
In the meantime, some officials in Georgia have already hired personal lawyers amid the consequences of Trump’s efforts to alter election results.
Although Willis’ investigation began from the now infamous call in which Trump pressured Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to win the state, it is expected to extend far beyond that single decision.
“There may be nothing there,” said a person familiar with the investigation, “or it may be more comprehensive than we thought.”
Willis said his investigation will expand Trump’s previous connection to Raffensperger to include any efforts to influence the election in Georgia.
She is also investigating a phone call between Senator loyal to Trump Lindsey Graham and Raffensperger, the abrupt departure of Byung “BJay” Pak, the US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and the false allegations of electoral fraud made by Rudy Giuliani to Georgia lawmakers.
“The way she handles any case, she starts from the top and really dives. She follows all the clues that she can and gets a little exhausted that way, ”said Charlie Bailey, who previously worked with Willis in the Fulton district attorney’s office and is running for state attorney general in 2022.
Discerning Trump’s intention
The former president’s legal problems began to escalate following an impressive phone call on January 2. In the 62-minute call, Trump criticized his Republican colleague for refusing to falsely say that Trump won the election in Georgia and repeatedly praised unfounded allegations of electoral fraud.
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you recalculated, ”said Trump in part of the call.
Raffensperger, who repeatedly declined the call, replied, “Well, Mr. President, the challenge you have is that the data you have is wrong.”
Trump pressed Raffensperger several times during the call to “find” votes to reverse his electoral defeat, while raising unsubstantiated theories as to the reason for his victory and pressuring Raffensperger to look for ways to change the count.
“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than us. Because we won the state, ”said Trump.
A person familiar with the investigation said Willis will not hesitate to delve into the details of the call, even though the Trump team tries to claim various types of privileges to protect the former president from investigative investigations.
“Having a lawyer on a phone call is not a freedom card to get out of prison,” said a person familiar with the investigation.
Trump’s requests during that call came after 18 attempts to call the White House to the Office of the Secretary of State of Georgia between the election and the January 2 call, according to a Georgia state official.
“The repeated calls sort of start to tell the story that it wasn’t, again, an officer trying to talk to another officer about problems he or she might see in an election,” Michael J. Moore, the former attorney from the USA to the Middle District of Georgia between 2010 and 2015 under President Barack Obama, he told CNN. “They paint a picture of the intention and that is an important element for every promoter”.
Bret Williams, a former prosecutor for the North Georgia District Attorney, said the most serious crime Trump faces in Georgia is the criminal solicitation to commit electoral fraud, a crime. But concluding that a crime has been committed can be “complicated” and boils for Trump’s intentions.
“He can say, his lawyers can say, ‘No, no, no. He’s calling to complain. He’s Kvetching. He’s saying I was cheated, ‘”said Williams. Trump’s defense could be: “I’m not calling him to ask him to cheat for me, I’m calling him to undo the cheat,” added Williams.
A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on this story. In a statement earlier to CNN on February 9, Trump’s senior adviser Jason Miller said there was nothing “inappropriate or unpleasant” about the Trump-Raffensperger connection.
“If Raffensperger didn’t want to get calls about the election, he shouldn’t have run for secretary of state,” Miller said in the statement.
Georgia’s GOP is attracted by research
In the final days of the Trump administration, after numerous public attacks by Trump after the election, some members of the Secretary of State’s office hired lawyers for fear that the then president might leverage resources for political retaliation, an office source told CNN.
And while Republican officials in Georgia are eager to move beyond the drama of the election, they are expected to return to the investigation as Willis examines the details of the connection with Raffensperger, as well as disclosing Trump and his Republican Party allies to other officials in state
In addition to his connection with Raffensperger, Trump also had contact with Georgia’s attorney general, Chris Carr, and Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp.
In a call with Kemp last year, Trump urged the governor to convene a special session and convince state lawmakers to overturn the victory of then-elected President Joe Biden in the state, a source familiar with the conversation told CNN. He also asked the Republican governor to order an audit of absent vote signatures.
Kemp explained that he had no authority to order such an audit and denied the request to convene a special session, the source said.
Graham, Giuliani and other areas of research
Willis said he also has doubts about Graham’s efforts in Georgia.
Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when he called Raffensperger on Nov. 13 and asked if Raffensperger could dispose of all county postal ballots that showed unmatched higher subscription rates, said the secretary of state. Republican state to the Washington Post at the time. Graham denied Raffensperger’s assertions, who stood firm on his account.
Graham’s spokesman Kevin Bishop said the charges that the senator’s call was inappropriate were “ridiculous”.
“Senator Graham was asking about how the signature verification process worked,” said Bishop. “He never asked the Secretary of State to disqualify a ballot issued by anyone.”
Willis also expressed an interest in exploring Giuliani’s testimony before Georgia state senators, in which Giuliani promoted unsubstantiated theories as to why Trump defeated Georgia and a handful of other states that Trump had, in fact, lost.
Giuliani told a room composed mainly of Republican lawmakers that Georgia’s electronic voting machines are unreliable, tens of thousands of absentee votes were cast illegally and were not counted correctly and that the legislature should nominate its own voters who supported Trump.
“It is your responsibility if a false and fraudulent count is submitted to the United States government, and it is clear that the count you have now is false,” said Giuliani during the hearing.
In a statement to CNN, Giuliani said that “the law gives you enough leeway to see the case in the most favorable way for your client.” He added that any potential case against him “would be a scam and would fundamentally change the role of a lawyer and defender. It is clearly a vindictive position, not uncommon for those of us who supported and support President Trump. “
Georgia State law professor Clark D. Cunningham said Giuliani’s allegations may have violated the statue of the state’s false statements, a crime.
Cunningham says Willis has all the elements of a “very persuasive” story to try to convince the grand jury that there was a conspiracy to change the election results in Georgia.
“There are a lot of different plays and there are different acts and different people involved,” said Cunningham. “Lawsuits all over the place, hoping to find a judge to issue a temporary restraining order, asking for the intervention of a general assembly, of course raising all sorts of allegations of fraud, pressure threatening the governor, threatening the secretary of State.”
Willis also said he will take a look at Pak’s surprise departure from his post as US prosecutor for the Northern Georgia District in January. The change came after Trump seemed to refer to Pak as a “never-Trumper” in connection with Raffensperger.
“I find it particularly peculiar the way he left and when he left,” Willis said in a February interview with the Associated Press.
Although Willis wasted no time in launching his investigation of the former president, she said during the interview with the AP that she has no set deadline to complete her investigation.
“I’m not in a hurry,” she said. “I think people think I feel a lot of pressure. I do not.”
CNN’s Michael Warren contributed to this story.