Government

Fulton County DA Fani Willis Plans For Hot Indictment Summer

If it's what you say, I love it. Especially later in the summer.

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Trump Grimace

(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty)

For Americans crossing their fingers for a Trump indictment, there were some interesting tea leaves yesterday in Georgia where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating interference in the 2020 election. In a letter to Sheriff Patrick Labat she requested that he begin crafting a security plan in advance of a “pending announcement” of her charging decision in the case:

I will be announcing charging decisions resulting from this investigation during Fulton County Superior Court’s fourth term of court, which will begin on July 11, 2023, and conclude on September 1, 2023. Please accept this correspondence as notice to allow you sufficient time to prepare the Sheriff’s Office and coordinate with local, state and federal agencies to ensure that our law enforcement community is ready to protect the public.

In the letter, which was published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Willis cites “open-source intelligence” reports indicating that “this case may provoke a significant public reaction.”

“We have seen in recent years that some may go outside of public expressions of opinion that are protected by the First Amendment to engage in acts of violence that will endanger the safety our community,” she warned. “As leaders, it is incumbent upon us to prepare.”

In light of the winking interviews given by the garrulous foreperson of the special purpose grand jury which heard evidence in the case, it’s hard not to read this as foreshadowing a Trump indictment. It seems unlikely that the DA would be preparing for all hell to break loose if the local Republican grandees who signed the fake electoral certificate are the only ones being charged.

But the delay in charging decision to mid-summer rather undercuts Willis’s claim in January that charging decisions were “imminent.” Although, the New York Times reports that “her timetable has been delayed, in part because a number of witnesses have sought to cooperate as the investigation has neared an end.”

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Indeed, just last week we learned that, among the ten participants in the fake electors scheme represented by attorney Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow, “some of the electors stated that another elector represented by Ms. Debrow committed acts that are violations of Georgia law and that they were not party to these additional acts.” The DA filed a motion to disqualify Debrow, and, if successful, that will mean that her former clients — some of whom appear to be willing to cooperate — must now find alternative counsel.

In the meantime, Willis has yet to respond to Trump’s motion to magically disappear the work of the special purpose grand jury.

“We filed a substantive legal challenge for which the DA’s Office has yet to respond,” the former president’s attorneys told the AJC. “We look forward to litigating that comprehensive motion which challenges the deeply flawed legal process and the ability of the conflicted DA’s Office to make any charging decisions at all.”

So far their client has been too busy wailing for Tucker Carlson and kneecapping “Ron DeSanctimonious” to call for “death and destruction” as he did with his indictment in Manhattan. But in light of Trump’s reaction to losing an election, it seems that Willis’s warnings of “the need for heightened security and preparedness in coming months” are well warranted.

EXCLUSIVE: DA says indictment announcement coming this summer in Trump probe [AJC]
Fulton County SPGJ Docket

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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.

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