Prosecutors in Atlanta have informed 16 Trump supporters who have formed an alternate slate of 2020 Georgia presidential electors that they could face charges in an ongoing criminal investigation into election interference, underscoring the risk of criminal charges that Donald J. . Trump and many of his allies could face impeachment in the state.
The revelations were included in court documents released Tuesday in an investigation led by Fannie T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney. They showed that while much attention is focused on House hearings in Washington about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the extent to which the Justice Department will investigate, a local prosecutor in Atlanta could put Mr. Trump and his circle from allies in the most immediate legal danger.
“It’s a sign of a dramatic acceleration of her work,” said Norman Eisen, who was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment. He added that prosecutors usually work their way “up the food chain, so usually the first wave of target letters is not the last.”
A special grand jury is looking into a number of potential issues, including the creation of a list of 16 pro-Trump voters in the weeks after the election in an attempt to circumvent President Biden’s victory in the state. The district attorney is seeking testimony from a number of Mr. Trump’s lawyers and allies, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has emerged as a central figure in the case, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, whose lawyers agreed on Tuesday to receive objections heard in court in Georgia instead of South Carolina or Washington.
Some legal observers say Mr. Trump’s actions put him at risk of being indicted on charges of violating Georgia’s relatively straightforward criminal laws, including criminal solicitation to commit election fraud — most notably his post-election phone calls to officials of Georgia as Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, whom he pressured to “find 11,780 votes” enough to overturn the election results. A 114-page analysis of the case by the Brookings Institution, which Mr. Eisen co-authored, found that Mr. Trump was “exposed to a significant risk of possible state charges based on multiple crimes.”
Ms. Willis indicated in court documents that a number of other charges, including racketeering and conspiracy, are being considered, which could cover a broad list of Trump associates both inside and outside of Georgia. Ms. Willis is also considering subpoenaing Mr. Trump himself and seeking his testimony, according to a person familiar with the investigation, having recently subpoenaed the testimony of seven of his allies and advisers before a special grand jury.
Attorneys for 11 of the voters reacted strongly to the targeting of their clients, saying the local prosecutor had no jurisdiction to determine which federal voters were fake and which were genuine. The lawyers, Holly A. Pearson and Kimberly Borrows Debrow, accused Ms. Willis of “abusing the grand jury process to harass, embarrass and attempt to intimidate the nominated voters rather than investigate their conduct.”
Ms. Willis’ office did not immediately comment, but she said that “anything related to the attempts to interfere in the Georgia election will be under review.”
President Biden won Georgia and all 16 of its electoral votes. But after the election, some of Mr. Trump’s outside advisers came up with a plan to create a list of alternate voters in swing states like Georgia, falsely claiming that widespread fraud had faltered the election in those states. Many of Mr. Trump’s White House advisers rejected the plan — and efforts to get Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of electoral votes on Jan. 6 — as dangerous and illegal, testimony at House hearings showed.
Two Georgia voters have already been identified as targets of Ms. Willis’ investigation: David Shaffer, a Trump ally who chairs the state’s Republican Party, and Burt Jones, a Georgia state lawmaker who is running for lieutenant governor.
Lawyers for 11 of the voters, including Mr. Shaffer, accused Ms. Willis of politicizing the investigation and said many “of the nominated voters are prominent figures in the Republican Party of Georgia.” Voters include Mark Amick, who serves on the board of the Georgia Republican Foundation, a group of major party donors; Vikki Consiglio, Assistant Party Treasurer; Sean Steele, who won the primary for a State Senate seat earlier this year; Brad Carver, Atlanta attorney; and Kay Godwin, co-founder of a group called Georgia Conservatives in Action.
Most voters were scheduled to testify before a special grand jury next week. But in late June, Ms. Pearson and Ms. Debrow wrote in their filing that they were told by a special prosecutor that their 11 clients were considered targets — not just witnesses — in the investigation after new evidence.
“There is no legal or factual basis to designate the nominated voters as targets of this or any grand jury,” the attorneys said. “Nevertheless, the prosecution hastily elevated them from witnesses to targets, and the nominees informed her of their intention to follow our legal advice to invoke their state and federal constitutional and statutory rights to withhold material testimony.”
“It’s strange,” said Clark D. Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta. “They are now arguing their case, even though none of their clients have been charged. The purpose of this motion appears to be to ask a judge to preempt the grand jury’s decision that the grand jury can’t even indict them.
But the lawyers argued that “states (and their local governments) do not have the power to interfere (by trying to criminalize or otherwise) the process of sending potential ballots to Congress for a ruling.” They also pointed to the 1960 presidential election in Hawaii, where both the Nixon and Kennedy campaigns submitted voters, arguing that there was precedent for more than one voter list.
Mr. Jones, in a motion earlier this week, called on Ms. Willis to step down because she has spearheaded fundraising campaigns for Charlie Bailey, a Democrat who is running against Mr. Jones.
Ms. Willis rejected that idea on Tuesday.
“The subject matter of the grand jury investigation that ensnared Jones has no factual connection to the ongoing campaign for lieutenant governor,” she wrote, adding that “support for a political opponent” “is not among the extremely rare cases in which a prosecutor is shown to have personal interest in prosecution.’
The filing also said that Mr. Jones was “treated in the same manner as any of the 15 other unofficial ‘voters'” who presented themselves as duly certified voters for the 2020 presidential election and who received similar notification for target status’.
Potential legal exposure of Republican officials could complicate Georgia’s November elections, starting with the lieutenant governor race. Last week, Mr Bailey accused Mr Jones of being “anti-American and unpatriotic” for taking part in a “failed attempt to overthrow the American government”.
The investigation also showed divisions within Republican ranks. Mr. Shaffer is a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump and his baseless allegations of a stolen election, which have put him at odds with Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, as well as Mr. Raffensperger. Both Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger easily defeated Trump-backed primary challengers this year.
Congressman Jody Hees, who lost the May primary to Mr. Raffensperger, revealed this week that he had been subpoenaed in the investigation. A loyal Trump ally, he is leading a January 2021 House challenge to voter certification in Georgia. He wants to challenge the subpoena in federal court.
The biggest question hanging over the investigation, of course, is the potential exposure of Mr. Trump himself.
“She has made it clear that she has a keen eye on Trump,” Mr. Eisen said of Ms. Willis, adding that there were indications “that this first volley of target letters will be followed by additional possible targets, culminating in the former president himself.”
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