Georgia’s prosecutor Fani Willis is armed with powerfully damaging information about Donald Trump amid a special grand jury investigation that could make her the first official to prove the former president had criminal intent when he tried to reveal the election results of 2020, according to a former federal prosecutor.
To charge Trump with a crime, Willis will “need what anyone investigating the former president’s involvement in electoral fraud or outright election crime needs — proof of the former president’s state of mind,” Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, said Sunday on MSNBC’s “The Katie Phang Show.”
Willis “has a good case coming in to that grand jury because she has the tape” of Trump asking for votes after the election, Vance added.
Trump called Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger ahead of the official vote certification and told him he needed to “find” enough votes to turn his loss to Joe Biden in the state into a victory. “Guys, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break,” Trump pleaded during the call, which Raffensperger took up.
The call is particularly damning, Vance said, because Trump “isn’t asking for an investigation into possible vote fraud, not to see if anything went wrong, but simply asking “Raffensperger to give him the specific number of votes.” find he needs” to make him a winner.
“That’s pretty good evidence of criminal intent going into it,” and Willis will rely on witnesses to “put some meat on the bones,” Vance added.
While Trump’s phone call kicked off the Georgia election meddling investigation, the investigation has now expanded into possible racketeering and fraud linked to a number of Republican efforts to disrupt the election.
A major focus will be the list of false voters created by the Republicans, with the aim of replacing them with the legitimate voters of the state. Trump’s former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was deeply involved in that plan.
As many as 50 witnesses are expected to be called to the grand jury. Raffensperger, fresh off his primary GOP win for secretary of state despite fierce opposition from Trump, is scheduled to testify on Thursday.
Trump isn’t happy about it, according to recent reports on Truth Social.
Donald Trump denounces Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for investigating the registered request to vote for him after Trump’s presidential election. (Photo: Screenshot/Truth Social/Donald Trump)
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
