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Georgia prosecutor investigating Trump's attempts to reverse election results asks for grand jury

The Fulton County, Ga., district attorney looking into then-President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state is requesting a special grand jury to aid in her investigation.

District Attorney Fani Willis made the request in a Thursday letter to the chief judge of Fulton County’s Superior Court. Fulton County is the state’s most populous county and is home to Atlanta, Georgia’s capital and the center of Trump’s push to flip the presidential race there. Joe Biden won Georgia by a narrow margin, becoming the first Democrat to carry the state since 1992.

District Attorney Fani Willis, in profile.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. (Ben Gray/AP Photo)

Willis, a Democrat, cited the lack of cooperation from witnesses, including Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who “refused to cooperate with the investigation absent a subpoena requiring their testimony.” The special grand jury would be empaneled longer than normal and would focus solely on the case, but would not be able to issue indictments.

The inquiry started last February and centered on a Jan. 2, 2021, call between Trump and Raffensperger. Trump urged Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” that made up Biden’s winning margin in the state. Raffensperger refused.

Earlier this month, Willis told the Associated Press her team was making progress in the case but was not rushing things.

“I believe in 2022 a decision will be made in that case,” she said. “I certainly think that in the first half of the year that decisions will be made.”

In a statement Thursday afternoon, Trump said he “didn’t say anything wrong” in his “perfect” call with Raffensperger. He also repeated his baseless claims of election fraud, saying that the special grand jury “should be looking into ... the large scale voter fraud that took place in Georgia.”

The Georgia news comes amid increasing scrutiny into Trump, his family and his business. On Tuesday, New York State Attorney General Letitia James moved forward in an attempt to get Trump, son Donald Trump Jr. and daughter Ivanka Trump to comply with her investigation into the Trump Organization finances.

Donald Trump speaks into a microphone at a podium bearing the presidential seal, standing in front of American flags.
President Donald Trump speaks during an election night event at the White House early in the morning of Nov. 4, 2020. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court declined Trump’s request to prevent congressional investigators from obtaining White House records concerning Trump’s activities leading up to and during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Trump had attempted to claim executive privilege, but the 8-1 ruling allowed the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 access to hundreds of pages of documents.

The following day, the committee asked Ivanka Trump, who had served as a White House adviser, to cooperate in the investigation. Earlier this week, subpoenas were issued to Rudy Giuliani and other members of Trump’s legal teams who were working to overturn the election results.