Fulton County DA just upped the criminal stakes against Donald Trump in Georgia
Just a few days ago, we were discussing “Donald Trump’s Georgia nightmare” in reference to his catastrophically failed endorsements in the state’s Republican primary contests for Governor and Secretary of State. Now the stakes have just been raised in Trump’s other Georgia nightmare – the one that could put him in prison.
When Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis empaneled a special grand jury against Donald Trump over his 2020 election fraud, we pointed out that her work would move forward steadily, but leaks to the media only come at irregular intervals. Sure enough, Yahoo News is now reporting on some inside details of the case, sourced at least partly to the most common source for this kind of news – one of the witnesses who’s been contacted by Willis’ office. The attorney representing that witness says that Willis is being “much more aggressive and determined than I expected.”
But it’s the specific details in the Yahoo reporting that spell particularly bad news for Trump. First, Willis has subpoenaed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger – fresh off his Republican primary win in his reelection bid – to testify next week. We don’t see Raffensperger defying the subpoena in the name of protecting his nemesis Trump, so it seems a given that Raffensperger will indeed testify as required – confirming Trump’s guilt in the process.
Willis’ office also recently met with the January 6th Committee and obtained information about witness testimony. This is crucial, both in that Willis is being just that aggressive, and that the committee actually shared information with her. This makes clear that, for all the recent doomsday headlines, the committee certainly plans to cooperate with the DOJ’s request for information, or has already done so.
The kicker in the Yahoo article is the news that Willis’ office is indeed pursuing Donald Trump under state racketeering laws. That would go beyond simple election fraud, and targets Trump as the head of a broad criminal conspiracy. It could also mean targeting any money that Trump has made by pretending he won the 2020 election.
Notably, this news is breaking at the same time as the separately reported news that the Department of Justice is criminally pursuing Donald Trump’s Georgia election fraud on a federal level. Georgia is suddenly looking like ground zero for the state and federal criminal charges that Trump is now staring at.
