Update to Special Grand Jury Convenes In Georgia To Investigate Trump Election Interference: “Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said the grand jurors won’t begin meeting until June and won’t meet every week.”
Well June has arrived. The New York Times reports, Up to 50 Subpoenas Expected as Grand Jury Begins Trump Inquiry.
As many as 50 witnesses are expected to be subpoenaed by a special grand jury that will begin hearing testimony [this] week in the criminal investigation into whether former President Donald J. Trump and his allies violated Georgia laws in their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.
The process, which is set to begin on Wednesday, is likely to last weeks, bringing dozens of subpoenaed witnesses, both well-known and obscure, into a downtown Atlanta courthouse bustling with extra security because of threats directed at the staff of the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis.
Ms. Willis, a Democrat, has said in the past that Mr. Trump created a threatening atmosphere with his open criticism of the investigation. At a rally in January, he described the Georgia investigation and others focusing on him as “prosecutorial misconduct at the highest level” that was being conducted by “vicious, horrible people.” Ms. Willis has had staffers on the case outfitted with bulletproof vests.
Once again, inciting violence from his MAGA/QAnon cult members, jus as he did on January 6, 2021. Charge his criminal ass already!
She added that she was treating Mr. Trump as she would anyone else. “I have a duty to investigate,” she said. “And in my mind, it’s not of much consequence what title they wore.”
Ms. Willis emphasized the breadth of the case. As many as 50 witnesses have declined to talk to her voluntarily and are likely to be subpoenaed, she said. The potential crimes to be reviewed go well beyond the phone call that Mr. Trump made to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on Jan. 2, 2021, during which he asked him to find enough votes to reverse the election results.
Ms. Willis is weighing racketeering among other potential charges and said that such cases have the potential to sweep in people who have never set foot in Fulton or made a single phone call to the county.
Her investigators are also reviewing the slate of fake electors that Republicans created in a desperate attempt to circumvent the state’s voters. She said the scheme to submit fake Electoral College delegates could lead to fraud charges, among others — and cited her approach to a 2014 racketeering case she helped lead as an assistant district attorney, against a group of educators involved in a cheating scandal in the Atlanta public schools.
“There are so many issues that could have come about if somebody participates in submitting a document that they know is false,” she said. “You can’t do that. If you go back and look at Atlanta Public Schools, that’s one of the things that happened, is they certified these test results that they knew were false. You cannot do that.”
Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, is likely to be one of the better-known figures to testify before the grand jury. His office confirmed on Friday that he and Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for the secretary of state’s office, had received subpoenas and planned to appear soon before the panel.
Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey Graham are also subjects of the investigation.
Related News: CNN reports, Exclusive: Federal investigation into Trump fake elector probe expands to multiple states:
Federal investigators have interviewed Republicans in Georgia about interactions with people in former President Donald Trump’s orbit and his 2020 reelection campaign, as the Justice Department’s sprawling criminal probe into efforts to put forth alternate slates of electors to displace Joe Biden electors expands to multiple states.
In one case, FBI agents asked a prominent Georgia Republican whether he had direct conversations with Trump.
“They just asked who talked to me. If anyone from the Trump campaign had been in touch with me. Did Giuliani talk to me? Did Trump talk to me?” said Patrick Gartland, who was set to serve as an elector but dropped out. He recounted how two FBI agents visited his home in Marietta, Georgia, a few weeks ago.
Investigators have sought answers this month from Gartland and others connected to the GOP in Georgia and in Michigan — both in FBI interviews and in grand jury subpoenas for documents and testimony. Investigators are looking at whether the Trump campaign played a role in the submission of false election certificates, according to people approached by the Justice Department.
What the hell, FBI? Arizona had two groups of fake GQP electors who submitted forged documents. I have posted about this at length. Are you interviewing the coup plotters in Arizona, or not?
The federal probe’s aggressiveness in the battleground states around the electors issue has not been previously reported. The DOJ has charged hundreds of rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and in recent months, investigators have broadened their scope, seeking information about people in more politically connected circles.
The subpoenas issued to Gartland and others in Georgia are seeking communications with “any member, employee or agent of Donald J. Trump or any organization advocating in favor of the 2020 re-election of Donald J. Trump,” including his official campaign.
The subpoenas also seek any communications with more than two dozen named Trump campaign officials, attorneys and Georgia electors. CNN reported Wednesday that a recent subpoena related to the alternate electors sought communications with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Trump campaign lawyer Justin Clark, right-wing attorney John Eastman and others.
A question hanging over the Georgia GOP and the Trump campaign has been whether electors put together fake slates to fraudulently override Biden’s win in the Electoral College, or if they believed they were submitting alternative slates in case Trump’s court challenges were successful. No court allowed Trump to overturn election results.
No one has [yet] been charged with a crime in connection with the alternate slates of electors. A spokesman for the US attorney’s office in Washington, DC, which is overseeing the DOJ’s investigation into January 6, declined to comment.
A special grand jury in Georgia’s Fulton County also is investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including the fake electors. This is separate from the federal probe. [parallel invetigations, they may be sharing information.]
The federal subpoenas have been issued to Republicans with a commonality: the people who were set to serve as electors for Trump in 2020 but ultimately backed out.
* * *
FBI agents have also spoken with Jason Shepherd, another former Georgia GOP party official, multiple times this month, asking if he had any conversations with Trump campaign officials after the election.
Gartland asked Shepherd to fill his spot as an elector, but Shepherd did not ultimately serve in the role. He said he too received a subpoena, for documents dating back to October 1, 2020, and to testify before the federal grand jury this month.
“They were asking about the campaign and the slate in Georgia, trying to figure out what I may have had access to and been privy to,” Shepherd told CNN.
Shepherd said he didn’t have any documents to turn over, but he encouraged the federal investigators to subpoena other state party officials. He said the electors who did serve may have thought they were helping the Trump administration and the Republican Party.
“The devil really has to be in the minutiae and the details,” Shepherd said.
Shepherd was not asked specifically about communications with Trump, he said, adding he wouldn’t have had any to report, anyway.
FBI interview in Michigan
In Michigan, federal investigators have pursued Republicans who had similar roles in 2020 to share information about the organization of the Trump elector slates.
Gerald Wall, a longtime Republican official in rural northern Michigan, said about two weeks ago, he arrived home to find two men in black suits outside of his garage.
One was an FBI agent, the other from the National Archives, he said. “Instead of standing in the garage, I invited them into the house,” Wall said.
The federal agents spoke to Wall for about 45 minutes, asking him about the elector slate for Trump in Michigan in 2020, which was submitted to the federal government despite Biden winning there.
Wall, now 85, says he was battling severe coronavirus around the 2020 election, making it impossible for him to serve as an elector at that time. Another GOP member replaced him as an elector.
“I had nothing to do with the signing of the affidavits,” Wall told CNN on Friday. The investigators, he said, “just asked me how I felt about that. I said yes, there was irregularities in Michigan.”
Before leaving, the agents handed Wall a subpoena for his grand jury testimony, he said. But he told them he wouldn’t be able to travel so far and had nothing to share. “I told them in my shape I am not going to Washington,” Wall said.
They can arrange for virtual video testimony Dude, don’t sweat it.
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