Failed, one-term former President Donald Trump probably didn’t think it was possible for his legal problems to get any worse, but he was wrong, as there are now two grand juries in Georgia investigating him for trying to pressure election officials in the Peach State to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential race.
The Daily Beast reports that Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis expects those grand juries to start handing down subpoenas for relevant documents “in the very near future”:
“In interviews with Willis, her staff, five former members of the team, and several people who interacted with them, The Daily Beast has learned there are now two grand juries underway in Fulton County, and jurors in these secret proceedings will soon be asked to issue subpoenas demanding documents and recordings related to the Trump investigation.
“‘I suspect that’s in the very near future,’ Willis told The Daily Beast.”
Willis and the grand juries are taking a close look at a phone call Trump made on January 2 of last year to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he pressured the election chief to “find 11,780 votes” so it would look like he had won the state instead of President Joe Biden, who became the first Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992 to garner the state’s 16 Electoral College votes. In a very real sense, the results from Georgia sealed Trump’s fate and made it clear he had lost support even in the Deep South, where he was thought to be invulnerable.
As a result of that infamous call, Trump is facing the possibility of being charged with racketeering in Georgia, where the penalty for that crime carries a prison term of 20 years.
How serious is Willis about sending Trump to prison for racketeering? Considering a hire she recently made for the investigation, it certainly sounds like she expects to charge him and will recommend that to the grand juries she has impaneled:
“Willis has publicly acknowledged that she also hired John E. Floyd, a nationally-renowned expert on state RICO charges, who is expected to consult this team. That’s relevant, given that her office is looking into the potential use of racketeering charges against Trump’s inner circle. Prosecutors would have to prove a pattern of corruption—the same way they show that mafia bosses direct underlings. Their mission would be to show that Trump and his lieutenants conspired in a ‘criminal enterprise’ to undermine a legitimate election.”
Willis also says she doesn’t care if prosecuting a former Republican president in a state as conservative as Georgia costs her reelection in 2024:
“My philosophy is just: We’re going to call balls and strikes. And it is what it is. We’re just going to use the law and the facts. I’m not going to worry about the politics of that. And I do understand what I’m saying. If that means I’m only the DA for one term… that’ll be what God has me do for these four years.”
Fani Willis is Donald Trump’s worst nightmare made flesh: A strong, self-assured black woman who doesn’t have to kowtow to him and can destroy what’s left of his pathetic little con game.
