For those wondering whether Donald Trump will be criminally indicted, much of the recent focus has been on the Manhattan district attorney’s office, a grand jury, and the former president’s hush money scandal. The attention makes sense: This is a case that might soon lead to charges.
But it’s not the only case in which an indictment remains a distinct possibility. In fact, as the Associated Press reported, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation into Trump’s alleged election interference in 2020 is advancing in important ways, too.
A special grand jury that investigated whether Donald Trump and his allies illegally meddled in the 2020 election in Georgia heard a recording of the former president pushing a top state lawmaker to call a special session to overturn his loss in the state, according to a newspaper report.
To be sure, we already knew about many of Trump’s provocative efforts in Georgia, including the then-president’s highly controversial outreach to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office, which included an appeal to “find” votes that would flip the state’s election results.
What we did not know until yesterday, however, was that Trump also called then-state House Speaker David Ralston, urging the Republican leader to call a special legislative session in which the GOP-led chamber was supposed to reject Georgia’s official election tallies. That call, evidently, was also recorded, and members of the grand jury heard the audio as part of the recent proceedings.
Ralson, who died last fall, did not follow Trump’s directive. But while the speaker’s decision was important in preserving our democracy, it doesn’t make the call any less scandalous: The former president is being investigated for election interference, and the description of this call makes it sound as if there’s even more evidence of wrongdoing than we previously knew. This came to light by way of an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report that included some rather striking quotes from members of the special grand jury, including: About a month ago, Trump issued a statement thanking members of the Fulton County special grand jury for “totally” exonerating him. It was plainly ridiculous at the time. There’s a very real possibility it will soon look a whole lot worse.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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