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ATLANTA – Fulton County prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into attempts by former President Donald J. Trump to overturn Georgia election results, including a phone call he made to the Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Mr. Trump pressured him to “find” enough votes to help him reverse his loss.
Fani Willis, the newly elected Democratic District Attorney for Fulton County, on Wednesday sent a letter to numerous state government officials, including Mr. Raffensperger, asking them to keep documents related to Mr. Trump, according to a state official familiar with the letter. The letter explicitly stated that the request was part of a criminal investigation, said the official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal matters.
The probe comes as Mr. Trump faces a second impeachment trial in Washington this week, over “incitement to insurgency” for his role in the mob turmoil that attacked the Capitol on January 6. The violence that day followed weeks of falsehood According to the former president, electoral fraud deprived him of victory, including in Georgia, where he lost by around 12,000 votes.
For two months after Joseph R. Biden Jr. was declared the winner, Mr. Trump relentlessly attacked election officials in Georgia, including Mr. Raffensperger and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, claiming they were not doing enough to uncover cases of electoral fraud that could change the outcome. In addition to the phone call to Mr Raffensperger, he also called Governor Brian Kemp in early December and pressured him to call a special legislative session to overturn his electoral defeat. Later that month, Mr. Trump called a state investigator and urged the official to “find the fraud,” according to those with knowledge of the call.
The investigation makes Georgia the second state after New York where Mr. Trump faces a criminal investigation. And he comes to a jurisdiction where potential jurors are unlikely to be hospitable to the former president; Fulton County encompasses most of Atlanta and overwhelmingly supported President Biden in the November election.
The Fulton County investigation follows a decision made Monday by Mr Raffensperger’s office to open an administrative investigation.
Ms Willis has been considering whether to open an investigation for several weeks, after Mr Trump’s phone call to Mr Raffensperger on January 2 alarmed election experts who call it an extraordinary intervention in the electoral process of a state.
Former prosecutors said Mr Trump’s appeals could go against at least three state laws. The first is criminal solicitation to commit electoral fraud, which can be either a felony or an offense; as a felony, he is punishable by at least one year in prison. There is also a related conspiracy charge, which can be prosecuted as a misdemeanor or felony. A third law, a misdemeanor offense, prohibits “intentional interference” in the “exercise of electoral functions” of another person.
Mr. Biden’s victory in Georgia was reaffirmed after election officials recertified the state’s presidential election results in three separate ballot counts: the initial election count; a manual recount ordered by the state; and another recount, which was demanded by Mr. Trump’s campaign and completed by machines.
Mr Biden was the first Democrat to win the presidential election in Georgia since 1992. Mr Trump accused Governor Brian Kemp and Mr Raffensperger, both Republicans, of not doing enough to help him overthrow the government. result in the weeks following the election. Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensberger had each withstood numerous attacks from Mr. Trump who called the governor “unhappy” and he called on the secretary of state to resign.
The Georgia probe comes as Mr. Trump also faces an ongoing criminal investigation into his finances by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. and a civil fraud investigation by the prosecutor New York General Letitia James.
The mere start of an investigation into the polarizing former president could be a watershed moment for Ms Willis, who took office in January. She is the first African-American woman to hold the post in Georgia’s most populous county and has already faced some daunting challenges: Atlanta just had a year with a high number of homicides, and Ms Willis has promised a series of ambitious changes. in office, as well as a review of his predecessor’s controversial handling of the police shooting of a black man, Rayshard Brooks, in June.
If Mr. Trump were to be found guilty of a state crime in New York or Georgia, a federal pardon would not apply. In Georgia, Mr. Trump can’t look to Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, for a state pardon, and not just because the two have a fractured relationship. In Georgia, pardons are only granted by the State Board of Pardons and Parole.
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