The News
A couple dozen Atlanta-area residents will be selected Tuesday to be part of a grand jury that will likely consider whether to indict former president Donald Trump on criminal charges for trying to overturn his 2020 loss in Georgia.
As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, Tuesday marks the start of a new grand jury term in Fulton County, where District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating whether Trump and his allies broke the law following the 2020 election. Willis outlined in a letter in May that she might seek grand jury indictments in the case in early- to mid-August.
Here’s what you need to know about the case, and analysis on what a possible case against Trump could look into.
Insights
- The grand jury that will be empaneled Tuesday is different from the ”special grand jury" that met for eight months and subpoenaed dozens of witnesses to testify about the effort to overturn the election, including Trump’s call for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the 11,780 votes needed to beat Joe Biden. The special grand jury issued a report to prosecutors that recommended multiple people be criminally indicted.
- On top of the Georgia probe, Trump is also the subject of a federal investigation related to the 2020 election. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith is looking into whether there was “provable criminal intent” behind the push to subvert the election, and the investigation is becoming a “wide-ranging probe” into the plots, CBS’s Robert Costa reported. The intent question is a factor in the Georgia case as well, Georgia State University’s Anthony Michael Kreis noted.
- Willis is known as a skilled trial attorney with a no-nonsense personality who won’t try “skinny” cases, an AJC profile from last year noted. Her experience prosecuting racketeering cases could also help her, given that the election interference investigation is wide-reaching. Eight Republicans who acted as fake presidential electors for Trump have reportedly accepted immunity deals.
