ATLANTA — NBC News is now confirming a New York Times report that a special Grand Jury in Fulton County may soon begin investigating former President Donald Trump.
According to the reports, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis may be close to impaneling a special Grand Jury to investigate whether Trump illegally interfered in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results.
At the center of it are Trump’s phone calls to Georgia officials after Joe Biden beat Trump in Georgia in November 2020.
For example, Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, urging Raffensperger to find that Trump really won the state.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump told Raffensperger on the recorded call, “which is one more than we have.”
Now NBC News is confirming that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose jurisdiction includes the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta, may be ready to convene a special Grand Jury to investigate whether Trump and his allies conspired in those weeks after the 2020 election to commit election fraud in Georgia.
A Brookings Institution report released last month, examining what Georgia laws Trump may have broken, concluded he is at substantial risk of prosecution.
Former DeKalb County District Attorney Gwen Keyes Fleming co-authored that report.
“Certainly, as we were co-authoring the Brookings report, we did look at all of the available evidence. So you mentioned earlier some of the calls that were made to the governor in addition to the secretary of state, calls that were made to the attorney general, visits by Mark Meadows, and others to Cobb County," Fleming told MSNBC. "We looked at all of the publicly available information. And again, the conclusion we came to is that there may be a substantial risk of prosecution.”
Raffensperger, appearing on Meet the Press October 31, said he would gladly talk with the D.A. about Trump interference, and about Trump insisting that the recorded phone call clears him.
“Finally you say, enough is enough,” Raffensperger said. “You’re just making this stuff up, or you’re misrepresenting what we actually talked about. There’s one hour and 10 minutes of conversation, and you can then decide what exactly was said during our conversation.”
11Alive News is working to reach Fani Willis about convening a special Fulton County Grand Jury, and about the latest time frame for deciding whether to pursue criminal charges in Fulton County against Trump and others.