Georgia subpoenas of Trump allies offer hope 'that justice will ultimately be served'
The head of Common Cause Georgia on Wednesday welcomed the news that a Fulton County special grand jury investigating 2020 election interference subpoenaed seven key allies of former President Donald Trump.
"We need to know those who broke our laws in their dangerous attempts to hold on to power be held accountable."
"The coordinated attempts by former President Donald Trump and his associates to discount and ignore the will of Georgian voters during the 2020 election cannot be swept under the rug," said Aunna Dennis, the advocacy group's executive director, in a statement.
"That's why I am encouraged that the Fulton County grand jury is continuing their necessary work to uncover the truth of what happened by calling on those who perpetrated Trump's Big Lie to testify," she added, referencing the former president's false claim—frequently repeated by his allies—that the election was stolen from him.
As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported, the subpoenas target U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) along with attorneys Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Rudy Giuliani, Cleta Mitchell, and Jacki Pick Deason.
According to the newspaper:
The subpoenas were filed July 5 and signed by Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is overseeing the special grand jury. They noted that all seven people were "a necessary and material witness" to the investigation.
Unlike subpoenas issued to Georgians, the summons required McBurney's blessing since they are for people who reside outside the state.
The 23-person special grand jury has heard testimony in recent weeks from a parade of witnesses, including some who had direct contact with Trump and his associates in late 2020 and early 2021. But Tuesday's subpoenas are the closest jurors have gotten to the Trump campaign or inner circle of the former president.Common Cause Georgia's leader asserted Wednesday that the state, widely known for its voter suppression efforts in recent years, "cannot continue to be the testing grounds for sensationalized propaganda attempts that are designed to deter voters from the ballot box."
"We need to know those who broke our laws in their dangerous attempts to hold on to power be held accountable," she continued. "The transparency in this investigation into potential criminal misdeeds has bolstered my hopes that justice will ultimately be served."
"Our democracy," Dennis declared, "is dependent upon all of us in Georgia participating in the election process, and by knowing that voters' choices will be respected and accepted going forward."
Fani Willis, the Democratic district attorney in Fulton County, launched a probe after an infamous January 2, 2021 phone call in which Trump asked Georgia GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" over 11,000 votes to reverse the state's 2020 presidential election results.
In her first public comments since the subpoenas, Willis told NBC News on Wednesday that more subpoenas targeting members of Trump's inner circle are coming. Asked whether that will include the former president, she replied that "anything is possible."
"We'll just have to see where the investigation leads us," Willis said. "I think that people thought that we came into this as some kind of game. This is not a game at all. What I am doing is very serious. It's very important work. And we're going to do our due diligence and making sure that we look at all aspects of the case."
Willis convened the special grand jury in May and its work can continue for up to a year. The DA said Wednesday that she will pause the probe's activities in October, when early voting begins in Georgia, to avoid any appearance of election interference.
Graham on Wednesday announced in a statement from his attorneys that he plans to challenge the subpoena in court and accused the Fulton County investigators of engaging in "a fishing expedition and working in concert" with the congressional committee probing a pro-Trump mob's January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, who was subpoenaed by the January 6 panel last month, has reached a deal with the committee to "sit for a videotaped, transcribed interview" on Friday, rather than testifying publicly.
According to an email reviewed by the Times, the interview can include his account of the events on January 6 as well as discussions of a meeting with Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, Trump's interactions with Eastman, and any contact with members of Congress.
Read More Here:https://www.ajc.com/politics/fulton-grand-jury-subpoenas-giuliani-graham-trump-confidantes/POUNSTTUXZDGDB3D5LKA7TIQQM/Accelerating investigation into Giuliani and Eastman ‘could fuel charges against Trump’: report
The Justice Department investigation into the unconstitutional effort to overturn Donald Trump's election loss has picked up speed since the start of the Jan. 6 committee's public hearings, and that has put new pressure on the scheme's architects.
The FBI has seized electronic devices from former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark and Trump lawyer John Eastman, who concocted the "fake electors" scheme, and witnesses have testified that they asked for pardons along with Rudy Giuliani, putting all three under intense legal heat, reported The Guardian.
“The strong evidence presented about the fake electors scheme at recent House committee hearings, including testimony by senior Justice Department officials, laid the foundation for charging Trump’s legal advisers, Eastman and Giuliani, and possibly Clark, with multiple state and federal crimes including obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, false statements in connection with the fake electors scheme, and election fraud," said former DOJ prosecutor Michael Zeldin.
The committee has heard testimony from former attorney general William Barr, who called Trump's claims about election fraud "bullsh*t," and several insiders who said that White House counsel Pat Cipollone -- who will testify Friday -- told the former president and his allies their efforts were most likely illegal.
“The cumulative evidence presented over the course of the hearings paint a picture of a president who was told explicitly by multiple people that he lost the election and that once he exhausted his judicial remedies (losing nearly 60 cases) his continuing pressure campaign to prevent the orderly transfer of power was illegal," Zeldin said. “Yet Trump and his attorneys persisted.”
Other former prosecutors say the raids indicate investigations into Clark and Eastman have escalated, which The Guardian reported "could fuel charges against Trump," who was at the center of the scheme, for obstruction of an official proceeding or defrauding the U.S. government.
“Search warrants of Clark and Eastman’s phones means that a judge found probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime would be found on each of those devices,” said former U.S. attorney Barbara McQuade.
U.S. District Court judge David Carter has already ruled that Trump "more likely than not" broke the law by trying to overturn his election loss, and so he ordered Eastman to turn over more than 100 emails he had withheld from the House select committee.
“Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history,” Carter wrote in his order.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide who testified publicly and at length about those efforts, delivered powerful evidence of criminality by the former president and his allies, including Eastman and Giuliani, according to another former DOJ official.
"[She] might be the final nail in the legal jeopardy coffin of Trump’s coterie of lawyers and enablers," said Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of DoJ’s fraud section. “Hutchinson’s testimony has lifted the curtain on the false narrative that the violent Capitol confrontation was spontaneous."
Former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut said investigators appear closer to pursuing criminal charges against Clark, Eastman and Giuliani, which puts the twice-impeached former president in ever more legal peril.
“Giuliani and Eastman seeking pardons is powerful evidence of ‘consciousness of guilt’,” Aftergut said, and at least one of them may be convinced to flip. “The earliest cooperators generally get the best deals from prosecutors … any of them could potentially provide damaging evidence against the other two and Trump.”
Read More Here:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/08/trump-clark-giuliani-eastman-lawyers-plot-overturn-election
