Investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results : NPR

[ad_1]

The grand juries that could be asked to indict former President Donald Trump in Georgia are officially seated. We are reviewing the status of the Fulton County investigation.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Investigations into efforts to subvert the 2020 elections have entered a new phase. Yesterday, the Michigan attorney general charged 16 people for their role in a fraudulent voter scheme. These are Trump supporters who falsely claimed to be the state’s official electors.

ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:

Those charges came just hours after Trump revealed he had received word that he was the target of a federal probe by the special counsel. Often, these types of target letters are preceded by a sentence. If one indictment is true, it would be the third for the former president who has called them all witch hunts.

CHANG: And here’s another scene, four days a week, prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, go into a secure room inside the county courthouse, and they present charges to a grand jury. We’re talking about everything from robbery to assault to murder. But next month, these grand juries may consider another indictment against former President Trump. WABE’s Sam Greenglass joins us today from Atlanta. Hi, Sam.

SAM GREENGLASS, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.

CHANG: OK. So catch us here. Remind us exactly what Georgia prosecutors are investigating.

GREENGLASS: OK. Fulton prosecutors have spent more than two years investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to subvert the 2020 election in Georgia. You may remember Trump’s phone call to the Georgia secretary of state, asking him to find votes to defeat Joe Biden. Prosecutors are also investigating a scheme to submit fake voters like the one in Michigan. The district attorney here, Fani Willis, suggested she seek a grand jury for indictments in August and told law enforcement to prepare for a significant public backlash.

CHANG: Well, August, it’s coming. Tell us how this grand jury process works.

GREENGLASS: Ailsa, I was in the room when this grand jury was selected and the pool included an actor, a teacher, a fireman. Unlike a trial jury, there are no questions about biases or opinions, only the first people qualified to serve. Let me play Judge Robert McBurney explaining the job.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ROBERT MCBURNEY: The test today is not guilt or innocence because you are making a very narrow decision, whether there is probable cause to believe that the person named in the indictment has committed the crime or crimes set forth in that indictment.

GREENGLASS: If only 12 of the 23 jurors believe the criteria are met, the case will go to a trial. And when that indictment becomes public, the names of the jurors will be listed on the page.

CHANG: Wait, really? Are the names of grand jurors public?

GREENGLASS: Yes. Georgia code lays out the appearance of indictments, including a line for the names of grand jurors. But you can imagine how jurors in a game case or say, an indictment of a former president might worry about their safety.

CHANG: Yes.

GREENGLASS: The chief prosecuting attorney told me that there is no set mechanism or precedent for withholding the names of grand jurors. So I asked former DeKalb District Attorney Gwen Keyes Fleming why the names were public.

GWEN KEYS FLEMING: We don’t live in a society where police and prosecutors can make unilateral decisions to move forward with cases. That’s why the grand jury system was set up. The system will not work without the participation of ordinary county residents.

GREENGLASS: He said a big part of that is transparency, so the public can trust the integrity of the process. And it may be especially important in a case like this.

CHANG: Well, how does the Fulton County investigation fit in with all the other investigations going on right now focused on Trump and all the fallout from 2020?

GREENGLASS: Right. As you said, Trump could be facing three other indictments. So I asked the former federal prosecutor, Joyce Vance, if these developments have dulled the importance of the Fulton County investigation.

JOYCE VANCE: If by losing steam, do we mean less interest in the press or less in the public eye? Maybe. But these prosecutions have merit individually, and they have merit collectively.

GREENGLASS: And, Ailsa, all of these prosecutions are coming to a head as Trump remains the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.

CHANG: That’s WABE’s Sam Greenglass in Atlanta. Thank you very much, Sam.

GREENGLASS: Thank you, Ailsa.

Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and consent pages at www.npr.org for more information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or changed in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

[ad_2]