Former President Donald Trump, who is already facing dozens of felony charges in separate state and federal criminal cases, could be indicted in weeks, if not days, on new charges related to his actions in Georgia following the 2020 election.
Grand jury selection started Tuesday in Fulton County to determine whether District Attorney Fani Willis has sufficient evidence to bring election interference charges against Mr. Trump and his associates who tried to get Georgia officials to overturn the state’s presidential election results.
“It could be pretty quick because there’s really no defense presentation,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said. “If they want to get an indictment, they should be able to get it in a matter of days. Weeks would likely be the maximum.”
Ms. Willis said in April she would file any charges against Mr. Trump between July 11 and Sept. 1.
Ms. Willis began investigating the former president three years ago based on his bid to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to dig up enough votes to overtake President Biden’s narrow victory in the state.
In a call made on January 2, 2021, Mr. Trump told Mr. Raffensperger, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.”
Mr. Trump has defended the call as “perfect” and said it concerned “widespread election fraud in Georgia.”
Mr. Trump has continued to make the claim that election irregularities gave Mr. Biden an unfair advantage.
Ms. Willis, he said in a statement last year, is fishing around for a way to charge “a very popular president” with “a tiny word of phrase” from the call.
Mr. Rahmani believes Ms. Willis will ask the grand jury to indict Mr. Trump on felony charges.
The grand jury only needs to be convinced of probable cause and will not hear from defense arguments. Ms. Willis may be emboldened by the total 73 felony charges Mr. Trump is facing in two other cases.
“I would expect that Fani Willis will seek an indictment,” Mr. Rhamani said. “She has a reputation as an aggressive prosecutor and any kind of hesitation by her to be the first person to charge a former president and opening up a political Pandora’s box, that’s all gone.”
Special counsel Jack Smith indicted Mr. Trump in June on 37 felony charges related to storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Mr. Trump in April on 34 felony charges related to alleged hush money payments in 2016 to silence claims he had extramarital affairs.
The Georgia grand jury is also expected to weigh charges against other individuals.
In addition to the call to Mr. Raffensperger, Ms. Willis is investigating Mr. Trump and others involved in a plan to appoint an alternative set of Georgia electors who would endorse Mr. Trump, and not Mr. Biden, as the state’s winner in the presidential contest.
A special grand jury last year heard from 75 witnesses in the case, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, and Mr. Trump’s former attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
The special grand jury recommended undisclosed charges for multiple people and reported possible perjury by some of the witnesses.
Jury forewoman Emily Kohrs made a round of media appearances in February. She told CNN the jury produced “a whole list” of indictments, including “the big name everyone keeps asking about.”
Following his indictment in Manhattan, Mr. Trump aimed Ms. Willis, calling her “a local racist Democrat district attorney in Atlanta who is doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call.”
Ms. Willis told a Georgia news outlet that Mr. Trump’s comment was “ridiculous” but protected by the First Amendment.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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