Shortly after Fani Willis began her job as Fulton County District Attorney in February 2021, she announced that she would be taking on an investigation of historic proportions – looking into Donald Trump. Now nearly a year and a half later, Willis appears to be ramping up her local criminal investigation into possible interference by the former Republican president and his associates in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. On July 5, a special Fulton County grand jury issued subpoenas to members of Trump’s inner circle, including Rudy Giuliani’s personal lawyer, his legal adviser John Eastman and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The latest development signals that Willis is getting closer to gathering the evidence she needs to decide whether to indict Trump, according to several legal experts who spoke to Insider. When Willis first announced her investigation into the former president, she said it would focus on efforts by Trump and his associates to pressure Georgia state officials to overturn the state’s 2020 election results. The probe has since expanded to look into an alleged scheme to certify election results from a fake voter ballot so that Trump won Georgia instead of the man who actually did, Joe Biden, according to a recent subpoena by Kenneth Chesebro. Trump’s legal adviser. Legal experts told Insider that the Georgia investigation into Trump could be the most pressing legal challenge against him. The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot has also focused more on Trump’s efforts to meddle in the state’s 2020 presidential election results, after Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger testified before the committee and recalled how Trump pushed him to find more votes. overturn the election results. “The Jan. 6 hearings accelerate the evidence that he needs to impeach the former president,” Norm Eisen, former counsel to House Democrats during their 2019-2020 impeachment trial, said of Willis. “They provide her with additional evidence of the offenses.” John Dean, former President Richard Nixon’s White House counsel whose public testimony played a critical role in unraveling the Watergate scandal, told Insider that the public has now seen evidence “that would show (Trump) has a lot of reasons to worry. .” But others, like Alan Dershowitz, who was part of Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment trial, feel differently about Willis’ investigation of Trump. Dershowitz told Insider that the process by which Willis conducts her investigation is “deeply flawed.” “Usually what happens is a crime is committed and then you try to find the person,” he said. “Here, it’s the opposite. People are looking to find a crime. They might find one. It’s possible, but I think the process is extremely dangerous.” Trump attorney Justin Clark did not respond to Insider’s request for comment on the Georgia investigation. Four legal experts spoke to Insider about possible Georgia laws Trump may have broken, which could potentially strengthen Willis’ case against him.
Blackmail
Last March, Willis hired extortion expert John Floyd to help with her investigation of Trump. Floyd wrote a book on prosecuting state racketeering cases called RICO State By State: A Guide to Litigation Under the State Racketeering Statutes. Typically, extortion charges are linked to criminal mobs or gang organizations. But it can also be applied to a group of people who commit crimes through extortion or coercion. Under Georgia law, this offense carries a minimum sentence of at least five years in prison. Willis also has experience prosecuting these types of cases. As an assistant Fulton County district attorney, he worked on a high-profile case involving several Atlanta public school teachers accused of conspiring to change their students’ standardized test scores. In 2015, 11 out of 12 school teachers were convicted of extortion. As a local DA, Willis could use evidence of Trump’s phone calls with Georgia election officials to bolster her potential case against him, said Nick Ackerman, a former federal prosecutor who also worked on the Watergate prosecution team. For example, on December 23, 2020, Trump called Frances Watson, who served as the lead investigator of the investigative division for the Georgia Secretary of State, where he urged her to find election fraud. A few days later, on January 2, 2021, Trump called Raffensperger and pressed him to find more votes to overturn the election results. “It’s the strongest case they have against Trump,” Ackerman said. “You’ve got two great witnesses: Raffensperger and (Republican Georgia Gov. Brian) Kemp. And you’ve got Trump calling the lead investigator in Georgia. I mean, the evidence there is pretty overwhelming.” Brad Raffensperger (left), Georgia’s secretary of state, testified before the House committee investigating the January 6 riot. His deputy, Gabe Sterling, also appeared before the committee. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Provocation of electoral fraud
Willis could potentially charge Trump with solicitation of election fraud using the phone calls she made to Raffensperger and Watson as evidence to support her claims. He may also point to the evidence he has gathered about Trump’s alleged plan to send out a fake voter ballot to overturn Georgia’s election results, legal experts told Insider. “The evidence that we have about Donald Trump’s demand for fake votes and fake voter ID, I mean, fits Georgia’s call for voter fraud like a glove,” Eisen told Insider. But her biggest challenge would be proving that Trump knew he was committing voter fraud when he made those calls to Georgia officials, said Peter Odom, a former Fulton County district attorney. “With fraud cases, you have to show that someone knew what they were doing was fraudulent,” Odom, who has worked on these types of cases in the past, told Insider. Odom added that Trump’s possible legal defense could be that he did not intend to commit a crime because he believed there was voter fraud. “If he really thought he won and was trying to get people to promote his victory, one could argue that he didn’t intend to get people to commit a crime. He intended to get people to the truth.” he said. But prosecutors on Willis’ team could point to the number of White House legal advisers and Justice Department officials who told Trump they found no evidence to support the idea the election was rigged. Some Justice Department officials, such as former Attorney General William Barr, have already testified before the House Select Committee about his conversations with Trump and how he informed him that there was no election fraud. Barr’s testimony to the House Select Committee was later presented during several of the committee’s public hearings.
Interference in the exercise of electoral duties
Willis could also charge Trump with the offense of election interference. Prosecutors will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump intentionally interfered with or attempted to delay the execution of an official government process. Her team could point to Trump’s calls to Raffensperger and Watson and claim that he made those calls to delay them from fulfilling their election duties,” legal experts say. Odom told Insider that if Willis were to charge those crimes against Trump, she would have to prove the former president knowingly tried to commit them. “The most difficult thing to prove in a case like this is the intent of the person committing this crime,” he said. “You have to show that someone did something intentionally…or that they did something with reckless disregard.” Loading Something is loading.
