One of the biggest probes into President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results is heating up. Trump allies have been subpoenaed, a member of Congress has refused to cooperate and Trump has called the investigation a witch hunt.
And no, I’m not talking about the House Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Welcome to today’s Essential Politics newsletter. I’m Arit John, a national political reporter filling in for David Lauter, and today we’re taking a look at Fulton County Dist. atty Fani Willis investigation against Trump.
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A special grand jury on Tuesday issued seven subpoenas to Trump allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) and Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani. The jury is also seeking testimony from John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Cleta Mitchell and Kenneth Chesebro – lawyers who helped devise Trump’s strategy for reversing the election results – and from a conservative expert.
The Jan. 6 inquest has come under the spotlight, but some legal experts have argued the former president is likely to face criminal prosecution in Georgia. The Congressional Committee can only make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice. Willis has independent authority to bring criminal charges against the former president, and has already set out what those charges might be.
This latest round of subpoenas aimed at Trump’s inner circle has only fueled speculation about the scope of the investigation.
She also hasn’t ruled out a subpoena for Trump. “Anything is possible,” she told NBC News this week.
Looking for 11,780 votes
Willis was elected in November 2020 after ousting her boss, former Dist. atty Paul Howard, in the Democratic primary.
She previously spent nearly 20 years as a prosecutor in the office and is best known nationally for using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — a 1970 law targeting gangsters — to prosecute a ring of Atlanta educators , which manipulated student test results .
The Georgia election investigation was sparked by Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The former president asked the secretary to “find 11,780 votes,” more than Joe Biden’s winning margin in the state. The Washington Post published the audio of that call a few days later.
In interviews, Willis said it was clear to her that she needed to investigate the call. She has signaled her investigation will look into whether Trump and his allies have broken state laws, including those prohibiting solicitation of voter fraud, conspiracy and racketeering.
“An investigation is like an onion,” she told the New York Times in February 2021. “You never know. You pull something back and then you find something else. … Anything relevant to attempts to disrupt the Georgia election will be reviewed.”
Earlier this year, a judge granted Willis’s request for a special grand jury to help investigate possible crimes. Unlike the prosecutor’s office, the 23-member panel has the power to subpoena officers and can meet for up to a year. The grand jury interviewed Raffensperger last month, and Governor Brian Kemp will deliver an affidavit to the panel later this month.
The district attorney also appears to be investigating a plan to send a fake list of voters to Washington, Giuliani’s unsubstantiated testimony about voter fraud before a state legislative committee, and a November 2020 phone call in which Raffensperger alleges Graham asked him if he had the authority to do so have discarded certain votes.
Graham at the time disputed Raffensperger’s account of the call and denied that he wanted the secretary to hand out legal ballots. The senator’s attorneys this week said he plans to contest the subpoena, calling the election probe “all politics.”
Willis pushed back on these claims. “What do I have to gain from this policy?” she told NBC News. “I hope he will come and testify truthfully before the grand jury.”
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The latest from the January 6 investigation
– The next hearing of the January 6 committee will be on July 12 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time. The hearing is expected to focus on how the January 6 mob formed, including who helped fund it and the involvement of far-right groups like the Proud Boys.
– Former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone will testify before the committee in a closed-door transcribed interview on Friday. Recent hearings have highlighted Cipollone’s key role in the events the committee is investigating. Several witnesses have pointed to moments when he raised concerns about the legality of actions taken by the President and his allies.
– Try as it may, Chapman University just can’t seem to get past John Eastman, the conservative legal scholar and former law professor who emerged as a central figure in the Jan. 6 investigation. Teresa Watanabe has the story of how Eastman’s actions continue to haunt the Orange County school where he taught.
— What else can you expect from the upcoming hearings on January 6? Check out our guide.
The View of Washington
– Biden spoke Friday morning “about protecting access to reproductive health services.” He was expected to outline executive measures aimed at mitigating some potential penalties women seeking abortion could face after the Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to the procedure, although the measures in their ability to ensure access to abortion across the country could be limited.
– Our Atlanta office manager Jenny Jarvie went to Florida where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is running for re-election on an anti-abortion platform in a state where a majority of voters support abortion rights. Though Democrats hope abortion will help their candidates, the reality is many voters are more concerned about inflation and the economy. “Abortion is not a priority,” Democrat pollster Steve Vancore told Jarvie. “Ron DeSantis will win in a landslide victory.”
— The constitution makes no mention of “separation of powers” or a “separation of church and state,” but the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has accepted the former while dissolving the latter, writes Supreme Court reporter David Savage in an analysis of the last court hearing . “While the recently concluded court session will be best remembered for its rulings on abortion and guns, it also saw the emergence of new anti-regulatory activism,” writes Savage.
– More than 250,000 young adults and children with visas are at risk of having to leave the United States after losing their parents’ visas, writes immigration reporter Andrea Castillo. A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress is working to pass the America’s Children Act, which would create new protections for these young people, sometimes called documented dreamers. The bill will likely pass the House of Representatives but faces a tougher road in the Senate.
– A new Biden administration program will allow migrant children to quickly reunite with relatives like uncles and grandparents at the border, writes Hamed Aleaziz. The new program, called the Trusted Adult Relative Program, is being tested at a border patrol station in Texas.
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The view from California
– Will Governor Gavin Newsom run for President in 2024? The California Democrat drew attention with his recent political ad urging Floridians to move here, but he’s unlikely to campaign just yet. “History has shown how difficult it is for a full-time governor of Sacramento to run for president and succeed,” writes columnist Mark Z. Barabak. As noted by political reporter Seema Mehta, the tiny $105,000 ad buy that aired on Fox News was likely aimed at catching national media attention.
– At home, Newsom has been criticized by community groups for failing to provide money for a potential fund targeting health equity and racial justice. The state Senate and Assembly provided $75 million to the fund, which didn’t make it into the $307.9 billion budget for fiscal 2022-23, which was finalized last week. Community groups said the lack of funding suggests the governor is uninterested in taking bold action against racial justice.
— Lindsey Horvath served on the West Hollywood City Council for nine years before running for Los Angeles borough mayor. But that’s not clear from their campaign website. As Jeong Park and Hailey Branson-Potts write, Horvath’s campaign recently deleted references to the famously liberal city from its website because it seeks to represent a district that includes parts of the more conservative San Fernando Valley. Their supporters say it’s not a problem, but it’s rubbed some WeHo locals the wrong way. Horvath will face State Senator Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) in a November runoff.
