Georgia Grand Jury Completes Its Investigation into Donald Trump over Possible Election Crimes
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Joe Raedle/Getty Images Donald Trump
A Georgia special grand jury examining Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the state's 2020 election results has concluded its work, a Fulton County judge said in a court order issued Monday.
In the order, Judge Robert McBurney said that the grand jury — which convened in January 2022 and began receiving evidence in June 2022 — is officially dissolved, with a hearing to determine whether its final report will be made public to be held later this month.
The report contains the grand jury's determination of whether or not they believe Trump broke the law, and could include a recommendation of criminal charges.
The grand jury's focus was on whether Trump or his allies engaged in possible crimes related to their efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss in Georgia, a historically red state where he lost the popular vote to Democrat Joe Biden.
Almost immediately after losing the state, Trump pinned his loss on fraud, all while pressuring officials in the state to "find" votes in his favor.
Much of the scandal regarding his efforts in Georgia hinged on a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between the former president and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump told the secretary he wanted to "find 11,780 votes" for himself.
That phone call — which was leaked to The Washington Post and made public soon after — helped spark the various investigations into Trump's efforts to overturn the election.
Over the course of its investigation, the grand jury issued subpoenas for testimony from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and other allies of the former president, including members of his legal team, such as attorneys John Eastman, Cleta Mitchell, Kenneth Chesebro and Jenna Ellis.
Trump's phone call with Raffensperger wasn't the only one the jury investigated, with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis saying earlier that her team was looking into communications Graham had with Raffensperger after the election in that state.
A subpoena cites a November 2020 phone call Graham made to Raffensperger, in which he inquired about "reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump."
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Trump is currently also facing a federal criminal investigation into his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and was recently the subject of a bipartisan House committee investigation into the Capitol riots, which took place after a "Stop the Steal" rally headlined by the former president.
The twice-impeached former president's post-White House life has been mired in intensifying investigations on various fronts, not all of them related to the election. He is also being probed for his handling of classified documents and his business dealings, and is the subject of a lawsuit filed by a former advice columnist who accused him of rape.
Trump, his family and his supporters have repeatedly and insistently denied wrongdoing in the various criminal, congressional and civil inquiries. No charges have been filed against the former president.
