Fulton DA investigating Trump asks FBI for help, cites concerns
The top prosecutor in Atlanta is looking into possible interference by former President Donald Trump into Georgia’s 2020 election results, a probe that includes a request for federal help to keep the inquiry moving despite the acknowledgment that the lingering questions may never be fully answered.
“Much of the information needed for the investigation may be out of our reach,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in a statement released Wednesday. She acknowledged a similar investigation by the secretary of state “is equivalent to a contractor gathering the tools they need before starting a construction project.”
Willis’ statement is curious both for what she revealed and what she didn’t. She said Georgia’s secretary of state recently referred an investigation of Trump’s efforts to influence the state’s election results to her office, and that she, in turn, requested a special grand jury last month.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger did indeed send Willis a criminal referral letter last week that asked her to look into allegations that Trump tried to subvert the state’s election results. The investigation will include allegations that Trump’s actions violated state law by pressuring Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state, which was officially certified in November.
Willis’ request for federal assistance to continue the investigation was made clear in a weekend letter she sent to Georgia’s congressional delegation.
Prosecutors in Manhattan mounted a wide-ranging investigation of Trump in the latter years of his presidency concerning possible financial irregularities at the Trump Organization and whether Trump paid taxes, among other matters. But no charges have been brought against him, and it’s unclear what – if any – charges Willis could bring were she to determine Trump committed a crime.
Raffensperger’s office began its own investigation of the former president after Trump urged him in a phone call last January to “find” the votes necessary to flip Georgia’s election results.
In a call to Raffensperger after the November election, Trump repeatedly argued that the secretary of state could change the certified results. Raffensperger pushed back, saying that Biden’s roughly 12,000-vote victory was fair and accurate.
Trump’s call to Raffensperger came after he repeatedly and falsely claimed that he had lost Georgia because of widespread voter fraud. Election officials across the country, including Trump’s attorney general, said there was no evidence of fraud on a scale that would change the outcome.
The Fulton County district attorney is one of several U.S.-based prosecutors who are scrutinizing Trump’s actions over the years, alongside those in New York, Manhattan, and possibly Washington, D.C.