Georgia DA Prepping to Announce Charging Decision for Trump
ATLANTA — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Monday told local law enforcement officials that she will announce this summer whether former President Donald Trump or any of his allies will be charged with crimes for their alleged interference in the 2020 election.
Willis revealed her intentions in a letter asking for “heightened security and preparedness” during a period extending from July 11 through Sept. 1.
The existence of the letters was first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and they are the clearest indication yet that charges are likely.
Willis’ office has spent more than two years investigating whether the former president and allies like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani illegally meddled in Georgia’s 2020 election, which Trump lost to President Biden.
A special grand jury that heard evidence in the case for roughly seven months recommended more than a dozen people for indictments, but it is up to Willis to decide which charges to seek before a regular grand jury.
In her letters, which were hand-delivered to Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat, Atlanta Chief of Police Darin Schierbaum, and Atlanta-Fulton County Emergency Management Agency Director Matthew Kallmyer, Willis says, “open-source intelligence has indicated the announcement of the decisions in 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 of our community. As leaders, it is incumbent upon us to prepare,” she says.
“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,” Willis said.
Earlier this month, Trump called for mass demonstrations and warned of “potential death and destruction” ahead of his being charged by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in connection with hush-money payments to a porn star made during the 2016 presidential campaign.
In the end, Trump was charged in New York with 34 counts of falsifying business records, but no protests, let alone violent riots, materialized.
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