Georgia grand jury chosen to consider third indictment against Donald Trump for 2020 election.

Grand Jury Selection Underway in Fulton County

A slate of Georgians selected Tuesday to be grand jurors may soon consider charges against former President Donald Trump and his allies who sought to subvert the state’s 2020 election results.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has written letters to county officials notifying them that indictments in the case could come about between July 31 and Aug. 18.

What to Know About Grand Jury Selection

Here’s what to know as grand jury selection is underway Tuesday in Fulton County.

• There will be two concurrent grand juries that will be made up of 16 to 23 people and up to three alternates as part of the process.
• One group is slated to meet on Mondays and Tuesdays. The other group will convene on Thursdays and Fridays.
• In order to succeed in voting in favor of an indictment, at least 16 grand jurors must participate in voting, and 12 must vote in favor of charges.

The Fulton County district attorney is expected to present her case before one of the two new grand juries being seated Tuesday.

Grand juries operate under closed doors and are not permitted to speak to the public or to the news media. Additionally, each member must be a U.S. citizen at least 18 years old and must live in the county where they serve.

Georgia law also requires an indictment from a grand jury to prosecute someone in most felony cases. When prosecutors make their case to the grand jury, they are attempting to show there is probable cause and that one or more people committed crimes in order to convince grand jurors to sign off on bringing charges against them.

Witnesses who come before a grand jury in Georgia typically are law enforcement officers, including investigators for the district attorney’s office. Members of the grand jury are allowed to question witnesses, and the officials can tell grand jurors what they’ve learned from their investigations, including what suspects and witnesses have said, along with other evidence they may possess.

Generally, a person who is named as a defendant on the indictment cannot be called to testify before the grand jury.

If a grand jury votes to bring charges, the indictment must be shown in open court by the grand jury or the sworn grand jury bailiff in a courtroom where the judge and the clerk are present. It would then be filed to the clerk’s office and become a public document. Later, those charged would be booked and have their first court appearances.

If a grand jury votes against an indictment, prosecutors are allowed to present their case to a different grand jury. But if both grand juries vote no to indict on the same charges, prosecutors typically have no way forward at that point.

Willis’s investigation started just after a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger surfaced, revealing Trump told him, “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” the number needed to overtake Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

Over the duration of six months last year, a special purpose grand jury, equipped with the power to issue subpoenas and create a final report with indictment recommendations, interviewed 75 witnesses. In subsequent media interviews after the report was handed to Willis’s office, the special purpose grand jury foreperson suggested multiple indictments were recommended.

The focus of the investigation is also aimed at other phone calls made to multiple Georgia officials after Trump lost the election, including calls by some of his closest allies to his election fraud claims, such as attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, and John Eastman.

Willis has said her team was considering a wide array of charges, including solicitation of election fraud, making false statements to state and local government bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of an oath of office, and involvement in election-related threats.

Trump has already been indicted twice this year in other cases. In April, he pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges in New York accusing him of falsifying business records in a hush money scheme over allegations of an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. He also pleaded not guilty last month to 37 felony charges in federal court alleging him of holding on to classified documents and rejecting government requests to hand them over.

The special counsel that brought Trump’s second indictment is also investigating his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results in several states, as well as whether he or other allies played a role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

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