Georgian Foreign Minister Brad Raffensperger, who was one on the receiving end infamous January 2, 2021, phone call in which then-President Donald Trump asked him to “find 11,780 votes,” will testify under oath Thursday before a special grand jury investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Raffensperger, whose office oversees the Georgia election, is among at least half a dozen people who work in his office who were subpoenaed to testify before the Fulton County special jury in June. The subpoenas, first obtained by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, offer the earliest glimpses of an unprecedented criminal investigation into a president’s interactions with state election officials.
The Secretary of State received a separate subpoena for documents, including “letter or media commemorating the events surrounding the January 2, 2021 call with President Donald Trump” and “any letter or medium explaining Trump’s conduct during the call.”
According to Melissa Redmon, a law professor at the University of Georgia and a former Fulton County prosecutor, these questions could help the special jury better understand Trump’s intent. Redmon said Raffensperger will likely be asked questions that “feed into the president’s intentions.”
“What was his state of mind? Did he just not know how elections work? Did he ask you to commit fraud?” said Redmon, who was previously the director of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Division of Public Integrity. “When you left, did you think you had received an order?”
Bill Clark
The special jury also requested that Raffensperger’s office produce documents related to a forensic examination of voting machines in Georgia and information related to an independent oversight of the election. Redmon said information could be critical to prosecutors preparing a case against Trump.
“If the attempt was to falsely claim that Donald Trump won Georgia, but actually didn’t, then part of the overriding case is to show that he didn’t,” Redmon said.
The special grand jury investigating Trump consists of 23 Fulton County residents plus three alternates. selected on May 2nd. Special grand juries are rare. They only engage in an investigation that ends when they prepare a report for prosecutors who ultimately decide whether to press charges. The judge overseeing the special grand jury said May 2 that it could potentially serve up to a year.
That’s the time it takes for an investigation where the stakes are historically high, according to Clinton Rucker, a former Fulton County prosecutor who has worked with District Attorney Fani Willis on complex, high-profile cases.
“What has to be recognized is that never in the history of our country has a president been investigated in this way for interference in an election. So it’s a case of first impressions in a lot of ways,” Rucker said. “So from my point of view, all bets are off from the start. There is no precedent.”
Willis was elected to office the same day Trump was voted out in 2020 and was sworn in just a day before the phone call central to her investigation. Before that, however, she worked for the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office for 17 years, prosecuting many of the most important cases.
Five weeks after the Jan. 2 call, Willis briefed several state officials on her investigation, including Raffensperger and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
Kemp and his office did not receive subpoenas from the special grand jury, according to a filing request, but in February 2021, a letter from Willis directed him to retain documents and records related to the investigation.
“Fani is a bulldog. She has always been a bulldog since I first met her. She’s really passionate,” Rucker said.
Willis is “meticulous” in her investigative work, Redmon said.
“She knew her cases back and forth and knew everything about her cases, what each witness said and when they said it,” Redmon said. “So I imagine that remains their method of gathering all the evidence, analyzing all the evidence and deciding what, if any, charges are appropriate.”
Trump said in a Jan. 20 statement, “My call to the Secretary of State for Georgia was perfect.”
A Trump spokesman, in a May 2 text to CBS News, claimed that an “illegal ballot-trading ring” influenced the outcome of the Georgia election, citing unsubstantiated claims often made by Trump and his supporters .
“A grand jury should be opened on the massive voter fraud in Georgia in 2020,” said Liz Harrington, Trump’s spokeswoman.
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