Atlanta Grand Jury Hears Trump Case: What to Watch

ATLANTA—The Georgia district attorney who has investigated alleged election interference by former President Donald Trump began presenting evidence to a grand jury here on Monday, according to witnesses summoned to appear.

On Monday morning, the Fulton County courthouse was surrounded with orange barricades and the street in front of the building was closed off. Media trucks lined the street. Law-enforcement presence was heavy but the streets were quiet.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s timeline became clearer over the weekend when two witnesses in the investigation said they had been summoned to testify this week. Here’s what to expect this week:

When could an indictment come down?

Willis began her presentation of the case on Monday. The grand jury is expected to wrap up for the week Tuesday. But two key witnesses scheduled to testify Tuesday have now been asked to appear Monday, suggesting charges could come sooner.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is presiding over the proceedings Monday, briefly stepped out of his chambers in the evening. He asked how the press was doing. “Hang tight,” he said. “I’m doing the same.” He then went back to his chambers.

Reuters reported on Monday that the Fulton County Superior Court’s website briefly posted a document listing several criminal charges against Trump that appeared related to election interference, before taking the document down without explanation. The Journal couldn’t independently verify the document.

A spokesman for Willis said Monday that the Reuters report was inaccurate.

The court’s clerk’s office called the court filing spotted by Reuters “fictitious,” without explaining how it ended up online.

Lawyers for Trump said in a statement: “The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office has once again shown that they have no respect for the integrity of the grand jury process,” adding: “A proposed indictment should only be in the hands of the District Attorney’s Office.”

Who is expected to testify this week?

One of the expected witnesses is Geoff Duncan, Georgia’s Republican former lieutenant governor, who spoke out against Trump’s false claims that the Nov. 3, 2020, election was marred by fraud. Over the weekend, he said he was asked to testify Tuesday. But a person familiar with the matter said Duncan’s testimony was moved up to Monday. Efforts to reach Duncan on Monday were unsuccessful.

“I look forward to answering their questions around the 2020 election,” Duncan said in a Saturday statement, referring to the grand jury. “Republicans should never let honesty be mistaken for weakness.”

Another witness summoned to testify is George Chidi, an independent journalist who stumbled upon a meeting of state GOP officials seeking to certify an alternate slate of Electoral College votes for Trump while the official procedure was committing the state’s electoral votes to Joe Biden.

Chidi said Saturday on X, the social-media company formerly known as Twitter, that he had been summoned to testify on Tuesday. He provided an update on Monday, saying he had been summoned to testify that afternoon—a day earlier than expected.

“Change of plans. I’m going to court today,” Chidi said. “They’re moving faster than they thought.”

On Monday, the jurors also heard testimony from Bee Nguyen, a former Democratic state representative who attended hearings where then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani

The grand jury could hear from other witnesses, as well as an investigator who summarizes witness interviews and other testimony.

What is the Georgia investigation focused on?

Willis, an elected Democrat in Atlanta, has been investigating alleged election interference by Trump and his allies for more than 2½ years. Trump has said he did nothing wrong in Georgia and that Willis is biased against him.

Trump lost Georgia by about 12,000 votes out of five million cast in 2020. Trump and supporters claimed fraud, but recounts and a forensic audit conducted by Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger found no evidence of widespread fraud. Court cases challenging the results failed.

Trump, however, pressured Raffensperger, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, the late Republican Georgia House Speaker David Ralston and others to overturn the results. 

Willis has investigated Trump’s contacts with Georgia Republicans in the weeks after the election, including a phone call in which he asked Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.”

Raffensperger, a former supporter of Trump who resisted the former president’s pressure campaign, provided testimony to Willis’s office.

Another focus of Willis’s investigation was the “alternate electors,” individuals who signed a certificate stating Trump had won Georgia in the 2020 election and declared themselves Georgia’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. In July 2022, Willis notified all 16 GOP alternate electors in Georgia that they were targets in her investigation. At least eight of them reached immunity deals that allow them to avoid prosecution if they cooperate and testify.

A third major line of inquiry for Willis has been an alleged breach of voting equipment in Coffee County, a rural Georgia county about 200 miles from Atlanta. Surveillance video showed Trump operatives in January 2021 accessing a secure area of the county election office. 

Why is a new grand jury hearing this case?

After launching her investigation, Willis found many potential witnesses refused to testify unless compelled by a subpoena. She requested a special grand jury, which under Georgia law had the authority to issue subpoenas and issue a report on its findings, but didn’t have authority to issue criminal indictments. The special grand jury interviewed more than 75 witnesses, including key figures such as Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.

A portion of the grand jury’s report was released earlier this year and stated that witnesses interviewed may have committed perjury. Both Duncan and Chidi testified before the earlier special grand jury.

The full report, which hasn’t been made public, gave Willis authority to present a case before a standard grand jury, which has authority to issue indictments. She is doing so this week.

What charges could Willis bring?

Legal experts have said Willis in her indictments likely will include violations of Georgia’s racketeering law, modeled after the federal “RICO” law initially developed to go after mafia bosses. Willis has said she is a fan of RICO prosecutions, and she has used the statute in high-profile cases in the past with success.

Willis could charge people with perjury, or lying under oath, election tampering and other charges in addition to racketeering. The focus of the prosecution’s case will be to present to a jury that a network of people was involved in criminal acts to achieve one goal: overturning Biden’s narrow victory in Georgia.

Write to Jan Wolfe at [email protected] and Cameron McWhirter at [email protected]