Former President Donald Trump may be teetering closer to a possible indictment now that the special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, has wrapped up its probe and delivered the final report.
An exterior view of the Superior Court building of Fulton County on August 31, 2022, in Atlanta, Georgia. Inset: Former President Donald Trump arrives for a New Years' event at his Mar-a-Lago home on December 31, 2022, in Palm Beach, Florida.© Megan Varner/Joe Raedle/Stringer
On Monday, the investigation ordered by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis officially concluded its work investigating whether Trump and his allies violated the law in their efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election in Georgia, according to a court filing.
Although special grand juries in Georgia are not authorized to issue indictments, Willis, who began the probe nearly two years ago, will now review the report and decide whether or not to impanel a traditional grand jury, which does have the power to issue an indictment.
While it is unclear whether the special grand jury recommended criminal charges in its report, former federal prosecutor and state elected attorney Michael McAuliffe told Newsweek that Willis is one step closer to bringing leaders.
"The likelihood of criminal charges arising from the alleged attempt to interfere with the Georgia presidential election process is very high," McAuliffe said. "It's not a certainty, but from the publicly available information, it isn't a speculative guess that there's more to come in criminal charges."2.62%
In a court order dissolving the special grand jury, Judge Robert McBurney of the Superior Court of Fulton County, who oversaw the matter, said that the final report had been reviewed by the 20 judges on the court but that it remained undecided as to whether the information would be made public.
McAuliffe said Willis may want the report to remain unavailable to the public if she intends to use it as the basis for seeking charges so that the regular grand jury has a chance to evaluate it and act on those findings. On Friday, McBurney said a hearing on the matter will be held on January 24.
Over recent months, Willis' office has informed nearly 20 people—including Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and Georgia GOP Chairman David Shafer—that criminal charges could result from the investigation.
McAuliffe said the real issue is not the report but who will be charged due to the findings. He added that Willis may also seek charges before a regular grand jury in hopes that some defendants will cooperate once they are prosecuted.
The probe out of Fulton County is one of several legal threats that Trump is facing on both the state and federal levels, and experts have told Newsweek that Willis' investigation is among the greatest of his legal woes.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said, "If Trump is prosecuted in 2023, the most likely venue is Fulton County, Georgia."
Last month, Rahmani said that a Trump indictment will require evidence and an aggressive prosecutor willing to take on the challenge. Willis is that prosecutor.
The district attorney started her investigation into Trump and his associates in early 2021 after a call between the former president and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger became public. During the phone conversation, Trump was heard asking Raffensperger to "find" the nearly 12,000 votes needed to reverse the outcome of the presidential election in Georgia.
The investigation in Fulton County has expanded to include the fake elector scheme involving an alternate slate of presidential electors, threats and harassment against election workers, the role of state lawmakers, and unauthorized access to voting machines in the Peach State.
"It's now the critical window for the Fulton County DA to finally characterize as criminal the alleged plan to supplant the voters' will with a magical discovery of votes for a particular candidate," McAuliffe said.