ATLANTA — A Georgia judge on Tuesday seated two grand juries likely to be tasked with deciding whether to bring election interference charges against former President Donald Trump and his allies.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has said she plans to announce impeachment decisions stemming from an investigation into “possible criminal interference with the administration of the 2020 Georgia general election” during a superior court term. which started on Tuesday.
Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney has seated two grand juries that will hear cases during the term, which ends Sept. 1. Each panel consists of 23 jurors and three alternates.
The judge informed the grand jury members that they only need to find probable cause to indict a person and stressed that their decisions should be based on the law, not personal opinion.
Willis has been conducting an extensive investigation since early 2021 into whether Trump and his allies interfered in the state’s electoral process during the last presidential election.
She recruited a special grand jury last year, that it was empowered to subpoena witnesses to assist in the investigation into whether there were “coordinated attempts to unlawfully tamper with the outcome of the 2020 election.” That panel recommended indicting more than a dozen people, Emily Kohrs, the forewoman of the jury, said on NBC’s “Nightly News” in February. The names have not been made public.
“There are certainly names you will recognize, yes. There are also names you may not recognize,” Kohrs said at the time.
In the months since then, several of the so-called fake voters — people who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump won Georgia in the 2020 election and that they were the official electors of the state — have reached immunity agreements with Willis’s office, court documents show.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case and maintains that Willis, a Democrat, is leading a politically motivated “witch hunt” against him.
Willis has indicated that he could file charges in the case in the first half of August.
“I respectfully request that judges not schedule in-person trials or hearings during the weeks beginning Monday, August 7, and Monday, August 14,” Willis wrote in a May letter to the Fulton County Courthouse Chief Judge.
One of the grand juries meeting on Tuesday is scheduled to meet every Monday and Tuesday during the court’s term, while the other is scheduled to meet on Thursday and Friday. Each will hear cases two days a week.
Unlike the special grand jury Willis used last year, the grand jury will hear all kinds of cases, not just those related to the election investigation.
It takes 16 members to establish a quorum each day and 12 yes votes for an impeachment. McBurney told the jurors that they would be paid $25 per day for their service.
Charlie Gile reported from Atlanta, Dareh Gregorian reported from New York.
