Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will begin presenting her 2020 elections interference case against former President Donald Trump and his allies to a grand jury early this week.
The timeline came into sharper focus on Saturday, when former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and independent journalist George Chidi separately confirmed that they received notifications they will testify on Tuesday.
The developments raise the likelihood that the public should know whether jurors hand up indictments against the former president and others by Tuesday evening. Willis is expected to begin her presentation to grand jurors on Monday.
A Willis spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Chidi tweeted that he was called by the DA’s office and “asked to come to court Tuesday for testimony before the grand jury.” CNN first reported Duncan’s appearance date, which was confirmed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Former Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan, who was also subpoenaed, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Former state Rep. Bee Nguyen, who was similarly put on notice that she could be called, declined to comment.
Jordan and Nguyen, who both ran for statewide office last year, heard falsehood-filled testimony from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani during state legislative hearings in late 2020 -- and forcefully pushed back on conspiracy theories that Trump’s allies were promoting.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
And Chidi stumbled upon a meeting of sham Republican electors at the state Capitol, part of an effort by the former president’s allies in Georgia to undermine President Joe Biden’s narrow 2020 victory.
Duncan would bring a different perspective to grand jurors. Once an ally of Trump, he publicly broke with the then-president in 2020 and has frequently criticized the “stop the steal” movement that spread through GOP circles.
As president of the state Senate, Duncan stripped titles from a trio of lawmakers who backed Trump’s push to overturn the election of leadership posts. He then refused to endorse one of them, then-state Sen. Burt Jones, after he won the GOP nomination to succeed him as Georgia’s No. 2 politician.
“I look forward to answering their questions around the 2020 election,” Duncan said about the grand jury. “Republicans should never let honesty be mistaken for weakness.”
Other high-profile Georgia figures expected to testify in a criminal trial have not been summoned to the grand jury.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was on the other side of Trump’s much-scrutinized demand that he “find” exactly enough votes to defeat Biden, told WSB he hasn’t heard from Willis’ office recently.
“They’re doing what they’re doing, whatever that is,” Raffensperger said. “And I’m sure I’ll read about it in the AJC just like everyone else will.”
Others have privately confirmed to the AJC that they were subpoenaed to testify, though it was not immediately clear how many would be asked to come in early next week.
Willis has long been eyeing racketeering charges against Trump and many of his allies for their efforts to overturn Georgia’s election results between Nov. 2020 and Jan. 2021. Past racketeering cases Willis has prosecuted have taken roughly two days to present to grand juries.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
On his social media platform, Trump on Saturday repeated his attempts to undercut confidence in Willis’ investigation, describing the Fulton County district attorney as “racist” and her probe as a waste of local resources.
He’s attacked Willis and other prosecutors investigating his efforts to overturn the election for years, painting them as politically-motivated attacks designed to help President Joe Biden.
Incidents that could end up the subject of indictments include: phone calls Trump placed to Raffensperger and other Georgia officials; the sham elector ceremony; Giuliani and others’ false testimony about election fraud in Georgia; the harassment of Fulton County poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss; and the accessing of sensitive elections data from Coffee County in South Georgia.
This is a breaking news story. Please return to ajc.com for updates.
