ATLANTA (Washington Insider Magazine) – In Fulton County, Georgia, a special grand jury has been convened as part of the continuing criminal probe into former President Donald Trump’s attempts to manipulate the outcome of the state’s 2020 presidential election.
According to ABC NEWS, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been probing whether Trump as well as other Republican supporters broke the law by pressuring state officials to try to influence election results in their favor.
On Monday, 26 jurors were chosen from a pool of nearly 200 individuals in an Atlanta courthouse, marking a significant step forward in the first publicly known criminal inquiry into Trump’s efforts to alter the 2020 election results. It took less than 2 hours to complete the selection procedure.
The special grand jury has no authority to issue an indictment and can only provide recommendations about criminal prosecution, which is likely to take months.
To file charges, a new grand jury would be required.
A panel of judges confirmed the special grand jury’s appointment in January, after Willis stated that it was necessary because a large number of witnesses and potential witnesses have declined to participate with the inquiry until they are served with a subpoena mandating their testimony.
“I’m going to bring an indictment,” Willis stated in a conversation with the Atlanta Journal Constitution last week if there was enough proof that somebody committed a crime. ” I don’t care who it is,” he added.
Willis began her investigation in February 2021, motivated in part by a phone call Donald Trump made to Georgia State secretary Brad Raffensperger, pleading with him to obtain 11,780 votes, the exact amount Trump needed to win Georgia.
Trump has justified his phone conversation to Raffensperger on several occasions. He said the conversation was “perfect” in a January statement in response to the announcement that a grand jury would be constituted as part of the probe.
