“Find me 11,780 votes,” Donald Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a legendary phone call. And because this conversation is taped and Trump’s voice can be recognized by a five-year-old, the case seems crystal clear to laypeople: The ex-president has clearly tried to rig the 2020 election to his advantage and make himself an indictable.
Fani Willis, a coroner in Fulton County, Georgia, has been trying to press charges for this seemingly obvious finding for two years. To this end, she has convened a special grand jury, a body that supervises a kind of preliminary investigation. Countless people had to testify before this grand jury.
Among them were such prominent names as Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani and Lindsey Graham, the fickle South Carolina senator. He had tried to refuse to testify and took his case to the Supreme Court, where he lost.
Many of the people who had to trot before the special grand jury are not just witnesses. 20 of them were warned that they were being investigated for possible crimes. Among them are Giuliani and Georgia Republican Party leader David Shafer.
The special grand jury has no power to decide whether or whom to indict. This requires a regular grand jury (sorry, US law can be very complicated). But the panel wrote a detailed report on what emerged from these testimonies. And members have pushed for the publication of this report.
Coroner Willis vetoed this because she doesn’t want potential defendants to be biased. In any case, she will soon let the cat out of the bag and, together with a permanent grand jury, will clarify whether and who should be charged.
A judge delivers a Solomonic verdict
Representatives of the media, in turn, filed a class action lawsuit against this veto, demanding the publication of the report in the name of transparency.
Now a judge named Robert McBurney has issued a Solomonic ruling. He has decided that parts of the report – the introduction, summary and individual testimonials without attribution – should be released on Thursday.
There are many indications that the report’s findings are explosive. The judge has suggested that some of those interviewed gave false testimony and that perjury is a US crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Rudy Giuliani is probably someone who probably doesn’t sleep well anymore.
The most important question, however, is: what about Trump? It remains to be seen whether a district coroner is actually fit to indict an ex-president. But much more powerful legal artillery is also being deployed against Trump. Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, has now assembled his team and moved into offices opposite the Justice Department. Now he starts.
Smith is considered a tough dog. He wants to clarify two things right away: What exactly is up with the classified documents the FBI seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida? And what role did Trump play before and during the storming of the Capitol?
Apparently Smith doesn’t burn anything. He’s already called Mike Pence as a witness. Trump’s deputy could clarify once and for all what the ex-president intended to do in the fateful weeks following his election defeat. Knowing this intent is essential to a successful impeachment against Trump.
Such an indictment – if it comes – should come this early summer. After that, the primaries for the 2024 presidential election will soon begin, and with it the moment at which such an indictment would be problematic for political reasons.
Smith’s team is therefore working at full speed through the numerous documents and testimony that the commission has collected to investigate the events of January 6, 2021, and is calling witnesses themselves. At the same time, the lawyers who handled the secret documents are also being questioned.
Meanwhile, New York City Attorney Alvin Bragg has reopened his investigation into the hush money case against porn star Stormy Daniels. It is therefore fair to say that Trump is in for a stormy spring, at least as far as his legal affairs are concerned.
That in no way stops the Trump camp from continuing to spread the big lie — the lie that he won the 2020 election. Kari Lake, another failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate, is currently touring Iowa. Lake is being discussed as a possible vice president for Trump.
Although Lake clearly lost in the end, as did Trump, she never admitted defeat. Like the ex-president, she knows that the members of her party are behind her. According to a recent poll, 55 percent of Republicans remain convinced that Joe Biden’s victory was the result of electoral fraud.
Soource :Watson
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
