Although the special grand jury does not have the authority to return an indictment, the move will allow Willis to sit on a panel entirely focused on gathering evidence in the Trump investigation. She said she needed such a grand jury to issue subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify and gather additional evidence, a step toward pursuing potential criminal charges.
Willis has said he hopes to decide whether to indict Trump in the first half of 2022. Last week he wrote that his office “received information indicating a reasonable probability that the administration of elections for the state of Georgia in 2020, including the election of the President of the United States, was subject to potential criminal disruption,” according to a letter sent to Christopher Brasher, chief judge of the Fulton County Superior Court, and provided by the court.
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, uh, you’ve recalculated,” Trump said during the January 2021 call. Raffensperger replied, “Well, Mr. President, the challenge you have is that the data that has are incorrect”.
In an earlier statement repeating his lies about the 2020 election, Trump said: “I said nothing wrong on the call, made when I was President on behalf of the United States of America, to investigate the massive voter fraud that took place “. place in Georgia,” while adding that a special grand jury should not investigate his “perfect phone call.”
Willis said last year that his investigation would expand beyond Trump’s call with Raffensperger to cover any attempt to influence the election in Georgia.
That included a phone call between Raffensperger and Trump loyalist Sen. Lindsey Graham, the abrupt departure of Byung “BJay” Pak, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and the false accusations of voter fraud Rudy Giuliani made to the Georgia legislators.
This story has been updated with additional information on Monday.
www.cnn.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism