Georgia Rejects Trump’s Bid to Kill Meddling Probe. DA Says She’s ‘Ready to Go’
Donald Trump is widely expected to be indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith on charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis may be next in line.
Willis, who has long been investigating meddling in Georgia’s election results, said over the weekend that her work is done and that she and her team are “ready to go.” She’ll be able to level indictments as she pleases, too, as on Monday the judge overseeing the Fulton County grand jury on Monday rejected Trump’s bid to kill the investigation.
It’s unclear whether Willis will indict Trump, although she’s made clear it’s a possibility. The former president famously pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over the phone to “find” the votes he needed to overtake Joe Biden, who narrowly won the state. The investigation has also focused on several of Trump’s associates, including Rudy Giuliani, and according to a report from The Washington Post, the probe extends beyond just Georgia, with signs pointing to racketeering charges.
Willis signaled in May that charges could be coming in August, and she reaffirmed the timeline while speaking with WXIA. “I made a commitment … that we were going to be making some big decisions regarding the election investigation, and that I would do that before Sept. 1, 2023, and I’m going to hold true to that commitment,” she said.
Trump has been fighting tooth-and-nail to stymie the probe, to no avail. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is overseeing the investigation, ruled on Monday that Trump has no “standing to mount a challenge.”
“For some, being the subject of a criminal investigation can, a la Rumpelstiltskin, be turned into golden political capital, making it seem more providential than problematic,” he added, referring to Trump’s fundraising off his legal woes. “Regardless, simply being the subject (or target) of an investigation does not yield standing to bring a claim to halt the investigation in court.”