Georgia prosecutors who are investigating whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally interfered in the state’s 2020 general election have informed 16 Republicans who acted as fake voters that they are criminal may face charges.
They all signed a certificate that falsely declared that then-President Trump had won the 2020 presidential election and declared himself a “duly elected and qualified” elector of the state, even though Joe Biden won the state. and a slate of Democratic voters was attested. Eleven of them on Tuesday filed a motion to have their summons revoked, calling them “unfair and oppressive”.
In addition, on Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, agreed to file any challenges to the investigation in Georgia in the state’s superior court or federal court, according to a court filing. She previously filed a motion in federal court in South Carolina seeking to block her from issuing any subpoenas on behalf of the prosecutor in Georgia.
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Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis launched a criminal investigation last year “in attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 Georgia general election.” At his request a special grand jury with summoning power was set up in May. In court filings earlier this month, she alleged that “a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”
Willis’ office declined to comment Tuesday on the motion to revoke the summons.
A lawyer for Willis’s office said in a court filing Tuesday that each of the 16 people who signed false voter certificates had received a letter saying they were the target of an investigation and that they had to appear before a special grand jury. testimony is required.
In the motion to quash the summons, lawyers for 11 of the bogus voters said that from mid-April to late June, Willis’s office had told them that they were considered witnesses, not subjects or targets of the investigation. For this reason, they had agreed to a voluntary interview with the investigative team, the motion stated. Georgia Republican Party President David Schaefer and another bogus voter appeared for interviews in late April.
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Grand jury summons were sent to all those 11 fake voters on 1 June. And on June 28, the district attorney’s office told its lawyers for the first time that their clients were considered targets rather than witnesses, the motion says.
On December 14, 2020, when Georgia’s official Democratic voters met to certify the state’s electoral votes for Biden, fake Republican voters also met to attest a slate of electoral votes for Trump. He did so because there was a lawsuit challenging the election results pending at the time, and if a judge found that Trump had indeed won his election slate, the motion would become valid, the motion says.
The motion stated that the district attorney’s office knew all that and labeled them as witnesses, prompting them to agree to voluntary cooperation.
The motion stated, “The sudden, unsupportable and public elevation of the status of all eleven nominated voters wrongly converts them from witnesses who were willingly cooperating and testifying to the grand jury for its persecuted goals.” were ready for.” As a result, his lawyers advised him to enforce his federal and state rights to protect himself from self-incrimination, and he “reluctantly” accepted that advice, the motion says.
His lawyers say the change in status from witnesses to targets was based on “an unreasonable desire to force them to enforce their rights publicly, as a publicity stunt”. Therefore, he should be exempted from appearing before the special grand jury, the motion said.
The motion asks Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is overseeing the special grand jury, to prevent 11 voters from appearing before the panel. It also asks him to look into Willis’ actions “reflecting the unfair politicization of this investigative process.”
And it asks him to submit a motion filed Friday by State Sen. Bert Jones, seeking to remove Willis and his office from the investigation. Jones, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, alleged that the investigation was politically motivated because Willis is an active supporter of his Democratic rival. McBurney held a hearing on that motion on Tuesday.
Willis’s office has said Jones’ claims are without merit and a lawyer representing the office wrote in a filing Tuesday that Jones did not identify any actions showing political motivation.
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