What it is: Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), an elected prosecutor in the Atlanta area, is investigating efforts to overturn Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s victory. He also called the top Georgia state elections investigator and urged her to identify wrongdoing in the state’s vote, and he contacted Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and state Attorney General Chris Carr (R). Prosecutors are scrutinizing Trump’s calls and testimony that his allies gave to Georgia state lawmakers in December 2020, as well as the scheme to certify a slate of alternate electors from the state to contest the election results.
Where it stands: Willis said in an April letter to law enforcement officials that she would announce possible criminal indictments in the case between July 11 and Sept. 1. She seemed to narrow that window in a May 18 letter to the top county judge, notifying him that most of her staff will work remotely for many days in the first three weeks of August. A Georgia judge on Feb. 16 released parts of a report produced by a special-purpose grand jury convened as part of the investigation, although the panel’s recommendations on potential charges in that investigation remain secret. The five-page excerpt revealed that a majority of the grand jury concluded that some witnesses may have lied under oath during their testimony before the panel and recommended that charges be filed.
What is at stake: Willis is investigating possible violations of Georgia state law, including whether anyone illegally solicited election fraud, attempted to “interfere with, hinder, or delay” election administrators’ work, or participated in a criminal conspiracy, legal experts say. But the district attorney is in some uncharted territory, experts said, because these statutes have not been widely used to prosecute election-law cases. At least 17 people have been notified that they are targets of the criminal investigation. At least eight of the alternate electors, who were named targets, accepted immunity deals and are cooperating with prosecutors.
