Facing a potential indictment in Fulton County, Georgia, former President Trump pulled one of his favorite moves on Monday: taking legal action to disrupt the investigation before he could be charged.
Attorneys for Trump filed a motion in Fulton County court on Monday asking a judge to throw out a report compiled by a special grand jury which spent the bulk of last year investigating the former President’s effort to reverse his 2020 defeat in Georgia.
The motion seeks to “quash and expunge” the grand jury report, suppress all evidence that the grand jury gathered, and bar Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from using the report to investigate the matter further.
In nearly every case that has placed Trump in jeopardy (there have been many), he has sought to derail the investigation before it could bear fruit. Trump has been successful in this. After years of investigations, not a single probe has notched a charge against The Donald.
Most recently, Trump had unexpected but brief success in the Southern District of Florida, where he asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to block prosecutors from investigating whether he unlawfully retained classified government records after leaving office. Cannon delayed the probe for months until an appeals court shot the effort down.
Trump, with typical bombast, alleged in the Fulton County filing that the investigation “violated all notions of fundamental fairness and due process.”
“The whole world has watched the process of the SPGJ unfold and what they have witnessed was a process that was confusing, flawed and, at times, blatantly unconstitutional,” Trump attorneys argued in the filing. “Given the scrutiny and the gravity of the investigation and those individuals involved — namely, the movant President Donald J. Trump, this process should have been handled correctly, fairly, and with deference to the law and the highest ethical standards.”
The special grand jury, empaneled under a local Georgia judge, spent most of last year calling witnesses in its investigation of Trump’s interference in the 2020 election in the state.
That included interviews up and down the ladder of those involved, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), attorney Rudy Giuliani, and the fake electors — Georgia Republicans who agreed to masquerade as delegates for a victorious Trump to the Electoral College, even though he lost the state to Biden.
CNN reported on Monday that Willis’ office is considering bringing racketeering and conspiracy charges against Trump.
The grand jury issued its report in January, and recommended that Willis indict an unknown number of people. Willis has said that her decision on whether to do so is “imminent.”
