Emptywheel- Where the Trump investigations stand: Georgia

[Fiendish Thingy]

https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/04/30/where-the-trump-investigations-stand-georgia/

Excellent update and summary:

In a bid to keep the Special Grand Jury’s recommendations secret in January, Fani Willis said the charging decisions were “imminent.” Since then, however, the regular Fulton County grand juries that would have to charge Trump and others have been churning out indictments for more ordinary crimes. According to Andrew Fleischman, there are 18,000 pending felony cases in Fulton County, many of them being held pre-indictment. Like some of the delays in the January 6 investigation, this backlog stems in part from COVID restrictions.

But it wasn’t just that backlog that has delayed charges against Trump. In March, Willis asked Christina Bobb for an interview (who refused). It may be that, after reading Bobb’s January 6 Committee testimony (transcripts of which were only released after the Fulton Special Grand Jury expired), Willis discovered that, while Bobb claimed to have been uninvolved in the crimes in Georgia, she testified that she and, “at least two dozen others,” over at least two rooms, sat in on Trump’s call to Brad Raffensperger, and “we all thought … it was totally fine.” On top of discovering that there were up to 24 witnesses who might be willing to misrepresent the call at trial, this may have caught Rudy Giuliani in a lie. After it became public, Rudy amended his interrogatories in Ruby Freeman’s lawsuit to reflect some involvement in the call as well. Someone recently claimed to me that Willis’ case is “open and shut.” But it’s not “open and shut” if there were 24 unknown witnesses involved.

More famously, according to a letter seeking to disqualify an attorney representing most of the fake electors, Willis has been spending recent weeks interviewing fake electors and telling them, allegedly for the first time, that they could get immunity deals if they testified against other Republicans. Friday, one of the fake electors who also accessed voting machine data on January 7, joined Trump’s effort to undercut Willis’ authority, represented by a new attorney. All of which suggests that Willis is spending time not just making charging decisions, but making sure she can win the case.

[gab13by13]

1. I have no problem with Fani Willis,

she is a courageous hero. She had to have extra security put on her and her staff, even bought her prosecutors bullet proof vests.

She understood from the start what needed done, she started investigating Trump in March of 2021.

Fani Willis is a perfect example of my argument that time matters in investigating Trump. This is how long it takes to hold Trump and his inner circle accountable. Trump is an evil genius, he used White House officials and attorneys to commit crimes for him and then claimed executive privilege and attorney client privilege to slow everything down in the courts. Trump's strategy from day 1 after his coup failed was to delay everything.

DOJ should have led the way but Jack Smith is catching up.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. "she started investigating Trump in March of 2021"

That's because the Republican GA SOS launched an investigation a month before in February 2021 since he was directly impacted by the criminality -

U.S. Legal News
February 8, 2021 5:06 PM Updated 2 years ago

Georgia Secretary of State's office launches probe into Trump's election phone call

By Linda So


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Georgia’s Secretary of State’s office opened a probe on Monday into former U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, a step that could lead to a criminal investigation by state and local authorities. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had faced calls to open a probe after Trump was recorded in a Jan. 2 phone call pressuring Raffensperger to overturn the state’s election results based on unfounded voter fraud claims.

“The Secretary of State’s office investigates complaints it receives,” said Walter Jones, a spokesman for Raffensperger’s office, describing the investigation as “fact finding and administrative.” “Any further legal efforts will be left to the attorney general.” He said the probe, which was first reported by Reuters, was prompted by a complaint filed on Monday by George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf. Banzhaf told Reuters he spoke with an investigator in Raffensperger’s office on Monday, hours after he filed the complaint requesting a probe into Trump’s potential election interference. It was his fourth such complaint to Georgia officials since the Jan. 2 call, he said.

Jason Miller, a Trump adviser, said, “There was nothing improper or untoward about a scheduled call between President Trump, Secretary Raffensperger and lawyers on both sides. If Mr. Raffensperger didn’t want to receive calls about the election, he shouldn’t have run for Secretary of State.” Legal experts say Trump’s phone calls may have violated at least three state criminal election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, and intentional interference with performance of election duties. The felony and misdemeanor violations are punishable by fines or imprisonment.

(snip)

David Worley, the lone Democrat on Georgia’s state election board, had planned to introduce a motion at Wednesday’s board meeting urging state Attorney General Chris Carr and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to open a criminal investigation into Trump’s phone calls with election officials. Worley said such a move was unnecessary now Raffensperger’s office had opened an investigation. “I won’t need to make my motion,” Worley told Reuters. “This is the normal thing that should happen when a complaint is filed. If a complaint is filed, an investigation is started, that’s how it works.” Spokespeople for Carr and Willis did not reply to requests for comment.

(snip)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-georgia-investigation-exclu/exclusive-georgia-secretary-of-state-opens-investigation-into-trumps-efforts-to-overturn-election-idUSKBN2A82HO

Since the state Capital of GA is in Atlanta and Atlanta is (mostly) in Fulton County (also partly in DeKalb County), the alleged "crime" occurred under her jurisdiction and complaints had already started flying (the latest one at the time having happened just as Raffensperger finally acted on February 6) .

[emulatorloo]

2. All three summaries are very informative. Thank you for posting this.