ATLANTA – Fulton County prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to dismiss Georgia’s election results, including a phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger pressuring him to get enough votes to help him undo his loss.
On Wednesday, Fani Willis, the recently elected Democratic attorney in Fulton County, sent a letter to numerous state government officials, including Mr. Raffensperger, asking for documents related to Mr. Trump’s call to be retained, according to a state official with knowledge of the letter . The letter specifically stated that the application was part of a criminal investigation, said the official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal matters.
The investigation makes Georgia the second state after New York to investigate Mr Trump. And it comes into a jurisdiction where potential jurors are unlikely to be hospitable to the former president. Fulton County covers most of Atlanta and overwhelmingly supported President Biden in the November election.
The Fulton County investigation follows Mr. Raffensperger’s office decision on Monday to open an administrative investigation.
Ms. Willis has pondered for several weeks whether to open an investigation after Mr. Trump’s call to Mr. Raffensperger on Jan. 2 alerted electoral experts who describe it as an extraordinary intervention in a state’s electoral process.
This call was one of several attempts Mr. Trump made to convince top Republican officials of the state to uncover cases of electoral fraud that could alter the outcome. In early December, he also called Governor Brian Kemp and pressured him to convene a special legislative session to reverse his loss of the election. Later that month, Mr. Trump called a state investigator and urged the officer to “find the scam,” according to those who were aware of the call.
Former prosecutors said Mr Trump’s claims could violate at least three state laws. One of them is the criminal inducement to commit electoral fraud, which can be either a crime or an offense. As a criminal offense, it is punished with at least one year in prison. There is also an associated conspiracy charge that can be prosecuted as either a misdemeanor or a criminal offense. A third law, an offense, prohibits “deliberate interference” with the “performance of elective duties” of another person.
Mr Biden’s victory in Georgia was reconfirmed after election officials re-certified the results of the state’s presidential election in three separate voting results: the first electoral list; a hand census ordered by the state; and another recount requested by Mr. Trump’s campaign and completed by machines. The machine count results show that Mr Biden won by around 12,000 votes.
Mr Biden was the first Democrat to win Georgia’s presidential election since 1992. Mr Trump accused Governor Brian Kemp and Mr Raffensperger, both Republicans, of not doing enough to help him reverse the result in the weeks following the election. Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensberger had each resisted numerous attacks by Mr. Trump, who described the governor as “unhappy” and called on the State Secretary to resign.
The Georgia investigation is ongoing as Mr. Trump is also facing an ongoing investigation by Manhattan Treasury Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. and an investigation into civil fraud by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The very beginning of an investigation into the polarizing former president could be a career defining moment for Ms. Willis, who took office in January. The first African American woman to hold the job in Georgia’s most populous county, she has already faced some daunting challenges: Atlanta has had a year of high murder rates, and Ms. Willis has promised ambitious changes in the office as well as a review the controversial treatment of her predecessor with the police shooting of a black man, Rayshard Brooks, in June.
If Mr. Trump were convicted of a state crime in New York or Georgia, a federal pardon would not be applicable. In Georgia, Mr. Trump can’t turn to Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, for a state pardon, and not just because the two have a broken relationship. In Georgia, pardons are only granted by the state pardon and probation authority.
