Atlanta Grand Jury to Hear Trump Case Early Next Week

The Georgia district attorney who has investigated alleged election interference by former President Donald Trump will begin presenting evidence to a grand jury in Atlanta early next week, according to witnesses summoned to appear.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s timeline became clearer on Saturday when two witnesses in the investigation said they had been summoned to testify Tuesday. Legal experts have said they expect the presentation of evidence to take around two days. 

There are two grand juries meeting in Fulton County through the end of August, one on Mondays and Tuesdays and the other on Thursdays and Fridays. The latest developments suggest Willis will begin her presentation of the case on Monday, and the public could know whether Trump and others have been indicted by Tuesday evening.

“I can confirm that I have been requested to testify before the Fulton County grand jury on Tuesday,” said Geoff Duncan, Georgia’s former lieutenant governor, who spoke out against Trump’s false claims that the Nov. 3, 2020, election was marred by fraud.

“I look forward to answering their questions around the 2020 election,” said Duncan, a Republican, in a statement. “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 the Democratic winner of the race, Joe Biden.

One focus of Willis’s investigation was these “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.

“I’ve just received a call from District Attorney Fani Willis’ office,” Chidi said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I have been asked to come to court Tuesday for testimony before the grand jury.”

Both Duncan and Chidi testified before a special grand jury that investigated the actions of Trump and his allies after the election. That grand jury lacked authority to hand down indictments, but after hearing 75 witnesses it wrote a report recommending criminal charges against several people, according to excerpts of the report that have been unsealed.

Willis, an elected Democrat in Atlanta, has been investigating alleged election interference by Trump and his allies for more than two years. She said in April that she plans to announce charging decisions this summer, and has told local law enforcement leaders to prepare for the “significant public reaction” her announcement could trigger.

Trump has said he did nothing wrong in Georgia and that Willis is biased against him.

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