Now That The Election Is Over, It Is Game On For The Fulton County Special Grand Jury (Updated)

Fani Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney in Georgia investigating Donald Trump and his co-conspirators for solicitation of election fraud in 2020, suspended the special grand jury proceedings in the run-up to election day.

Now that the election is over, it is game on for the special grand jury. “Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson will testify this week before a Georgia grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss in the state.” CNN reports, Former White House aide Hutchinson will testify Wednesday before Atlanta-area grand jury:

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson will testify Wednesday before an Atlanta-area special grand jury probing efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

CNN reported last month that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had secured Hutchinson’s cooperation in the investigation.

Hutchinson could offer Georgia prosecutors insights about what she witnessed in the West Wing, as well as specific steps her former boss took related to Georgia.

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Another notable figure expected to appear before the grand jury this week is Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is slated to testify Tuesday, a source told CNN.

The Tuesday grand jury appearance was first reported by the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

A judge previously said Kemp would not have to testify until after the midterm elections. Judge Robert McBurney, who oversees the grand jury, rejected Kemp’s earlier efforts to quash his subpoena but said there would be limits to the questions Kemp could be asked.

Among the topics prosecutors are eager to ask Kemp about is a December 2020 phone call in which Trump allegedly tried to push Kemp to convince state legislators to overturn Joe Biden’s win in Georgia.

Forbes adds Georgia’s Trump 2020 Investigation Heats Up Following Midterms:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is scheduled to testify to the grand jury on Thursday following a lengthy court battle, after the Supreme Court ruled Graham had to comply with the grand jury subpoena.

Graham will be able to dodge some questions that are related to his duties as a lawmaker, a lower court previously ruled, after the senator argued he should get out of testifying because of the “Speech and Debate” clause that gives members of Congress immunity from legal proceedings that relate to their official legislative work.

Former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn is also set to appear in court Tuesday as part of his legal effort to fight a subpoena for his testimony.

Other major witnesses set to still testify before the grand jury include former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was ordered to testify November 29 after trying to fight the subpoena in court, and Mark Meadows, who a court has similarly said must appear before the grand jury. Meadows is still fighting that order in court.

The special grand jury, which was convened in May for up to a year, can’t actually issue indictments themselves like a regular grand jury can. CNN notes Willis can convene a second regular grand jury if she has evidence of a crime, however, which could issue indictments even before the special grand jury disbands. Trump could face charges in the investigation for violating laws that prohibit soliciting election fraud, racketeering and making false statements, the States United Democracy Center notes, and a Brookings Institution analysis published Monday projected Trump “is at substantial risk of criminal prosecution” as part of the probe. In addition to Trump, his ex-attorney Rudy Giuliani and GOP officials in the state who submitted a false slate of electors to Congress have also been told they’re targets in the probe.

Jennifer Rubin writes at the Washington Post, If the GOP can’t get rid of Trump, maybe Georgia’s prosecutors can (excerpt):

[Donald Trump] remains in grave legal peril on multiple fronts, and no criminal investigation is a greater threat to him than the one being conducted by Fani Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, Ga.

Willis is teeing up a strong criminal case against Trump or his attempt to pressure Georgia election officials to overturn the state’s 2020 results. She has been calling the former president’s cronies to testify before a grand jury and is successfully beating back specious challenges to subpoenas from key figures – including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.

A voluminous new report from the Brookings Institution provides a legal road map for the potential prosecution of Trump.

The evidence presented in the Brookings reports should remove any reasonable doubt the former president was out to steal the election. This includes:

• Trump’s repeated attempts to discredit the results, even before the election began and despite multiple investigations that found no evidence of fraud.

• Calls that Trump made, not only to Georgia officials, but to election officials in multiple states to devise skates of phony electors.

• Trump’s desperate ploy to have the Justice Department send out letters to states falsely indicating there was evidence of fraud.

• Trump’s enlistment of lawyers, including John Eastman and Cleta Mitchell, to work out a scheme to negate Georgia’s valid, certified electoral slates of electors.

• Trump’s decision to send his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to falsely testify at a Georgia hearing about already refuted conspiracy theories. The Brookings Report also notes that “Trump’s team continued to pressure Georgia legislators throughout the month of December, with Giuliani meeting again with the Georgia State Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Dec. 30, 2020.”

• Trump’s attempt to enlist Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel to help his efforts in Georgia.

• Trump’s refusal to heed pleas from Georgia officials that his bogus legations were putting election workers and state officials at risk of violence.

Reading through the report’s compilation of law and facts, it is clear not only that a district attorney could bring such a case against Trump, but also that it is virtually inconceivable that one would refuse to do so.

Republicans still loyal to Trump who think the former president would be able to evade prosecution should reconsider. The Brookings Report analyzes a isa of defenses that Trump is likely to make, including “assertions of immunity by virtue of his status as a former president; claims that his conduct was protected by the First Amendment; accusations of selective or retaliatory prosecution; and an insistence that his conduct is shielded from liability because he truly believed his own claims of widespread election fraud.” None of these arguments, the report’s authors conclude, would have any merit. 

And so it comes back to Republicans. Given that they have never shown the nerve to abandon Trump, they might owe a debt of gratitude to Willis shoud she issue an indictment.

Leave it to a courageous woman to do what hordes of sniveling Republican politicians, donors and insiders cannot: hold Trump accountable.

UPDATE: Michael Flynn Ordered To Testify In Georgia Election Probe:

A Florida judge on Tuesday said former national security adviser Michael Flynn must testify before a special grand jury in Atlanta that’s looking into whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.

Sarasota County Chief Judge Charles Roberts ordered Flynn to testify before the panel on Nov. 22.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury, has said that the special grand jury’s investigation is a criminal proceeding. He also certified Flynn as a “necessary and material witness.”

Roberts honored that, saying, “General Flynn is a material witness.” The judge also denied a motion by Flynn’s attorneys to stay his ruling in anticipation of an appeal.

“There’s no undue hardship,” Roberts said.

Because Flynn lives outside Georgia, Willis had to use a process to try to get a judge where he lives in Florida to order him to comply with her summons.

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Flynn met at the White House on Dec. 18, 2020, with Trump, attorney Sidney Powell and others associated with the Trump campaign for a meeting that, according to news reports, “focused on topics including invoking martial law, seizing voting machines, and appointing Powell as special counsel to investigate the 2020 election,” Willis wrote.

And he attended meetings in November 2021 at the South Carolina home of conservative attorney Lin Wood. Willis wrote that Wood said in a television interview that they met to look into possible ways to influence the election results in Georgia and elsewhere. Wood told The Associated Press that he testified before the special grand jury last week.