Atlanta prosecutor moves closer to Trump inquiry
ATLANTA » Prosecutors in Georgia appear increasingly likely to open a criminal investigation of President Donald Trump over his attempts to overturn the results of the state’s 2020 election, an inquiry into offenses that would be beyond his federal pardon power.
The new Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, is already weighing whether to proceed, and among the options she is considering is the hiring of a special assistant from outside to oversee the investigation, according to people familiar with her office’s deliberations.
At the same time, David Worley, the lone Democrat on Georgia’s five-member election board, said this week that he would ask the board to make a referral to the Fulton County district attorney by next month. Among the matters he will ask prosecutors to investigate is a phone call Trump made in which he pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to overturn the state’s election results.
Jeff DiSantis, a district attorney spokesman, said the office had not taken any action to hire outside counsel and declined to comment further on the case.
Some veteran Georgia prosecutors said they believed Trump had clearly violated state law.
“If you took the fact out that he is the president of the United States and look at the conduct of the call, it tracks the communication you might see in any drug case or organized crime case,” said Michael J. Moore, the former U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Georgia. “It’s full of threatening undertone and strong-arm tactics.”
He said he believed there had been “a clear attempt to influence the conduct of the secretary of state, and to commit election fraud, or to solicit the commission of election fraud.”
The White House
declined to comment.
Worley said in an interview that if no investigation had been announced by Feb. 10, the day of the election board’s next scheduled meeting, he would make a motion for the board to refer the matter of Trump’s phone calls to Willis’ office. Worley, a lawyer, believes that such a referral should, under Georgia law, automatically prompt an investigation.
If the board declines to make a referral, Worley said he would ask Willis’ office himself to start an inquiry.
Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, is one of the members of the board and has said that he might have a conflict of interest in the matter, as Trump called him to exert pressure. That could lead him to recuse himself from any decisions on a referral by the board.
Worley said he would introduce the motion based on an outside complaint filed with the state election board by John F. Banzhaf III, a George Washington University law professor.
Banzhaf and other legal experts say Trump’s calls may run afoul of at least three state criminal laws. One is criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, which can be either a felony or a misdemeanor.
There is also a related conspiracy charge, which can be prosecuted either as a misdemeanor or a felony. A third law, a misdemeanor offense, bars “intentional interference” with another person’s “performance of election duties.”
“My feeling based on listening to the phone call is that they probably will see if they can get it past a grand jury,” said Joshua Morrison, a former senior assistant district attorney in Fulton County who once worked closely with Willis. “It seems clearly there was a crime committed.”
He noted that Fulton County, which encompasses much of Atlanta, is not friendly territory for Trump if he were to face a grand jury there.