Georgia Investigation Timeline

Jan. 1, 2021: Fani Willis is sworn in as Fulton County’s district attorney.

Willis is the first Black woman to lead Georgia’s largest district attorney’s office. In her 19 years as a prosecutor, she has led more than 100 jury trials and handled hundreds of murder cases. Since she became chief prosecutor, her office’s conviction rate has stood at close to 90 percent

Feb. 10, 2021: Willis announces that she is launching a criminal investigation into attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the election results in Georgia.

Jan. 20, 2022: Willis requests a special grand jury to help with the investigation because a “significant number of witnesses and prospective witnesses have refused to cooperate with the investigation absent a subpoena requiring their testimony.”  At least 30 people refused to testify without a subpoena, including Raffensperger.

[Notice the one-year gap in which investigations were no doubt happening behind the scenes] 

May 2, 2022

Judge McBurney seats the special grand jury. [A special grand jury investigates but doesn’t indict.]

June 2, 2022

Raffensperger and his wife, Tricia, become the first two witnesses to testify before the special grand jury.

Early summer, 2022

The grand jury issues subpoenas to top state officials, including Raffensperger’s senior aides, Attorney General Chris Carr, House Speaker David Ralston, and several other state legislators. The jurors also request the appearance of the 16 “alternate” GOP electors.

June 29, 2022

Republican members of the General Assembly, including Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and former Sen. William Ligon, challenge their subpoenas in court, arguing they’re immune from testifying due to legislative privilege.

Judge McBurney rules that the lawmakers are required to testify, but that there are certain categories of questions that prosecutors can’t ask because of constitutional privileges.

July 5, 2022

The grand jury signed off on summons for several Trump confidantes and former lawyers who live outside of Georgia including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Sen. Lindsey Graham.

July 6, 2022

Graham challenges the subpoena, arguing that the Constitution’s “Speech or Debate” clause shields him, as a member of Congress, from having to testify.

July 19, 2022

We learn that all 16 fake GOP electors were sent letters telling them they were targets of the investigation.

There are three categories of witnesses in grand jury proceedings:

• • • A target has been linked to the crime with substantial evidence. They are likely to be named criminal defendants.
    • A witness has no criminal liability (at the moment), but has evidence the grand jury needs.
    • A subject is in between: there is some evidence, but not yet enough for a person to be considered a target. A subject could become a target or a mere witness.

July 18, 2022: Georgia U.S. Rep. Jody Hice challenged his grand jury subpoena. A federal judge later ruled that (as with Graham) Hice had to testify but that there were certain subjects that prosecutors couldn’t ask him due to legislative privilege.

July 20, 2022: New York State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber orders Giuliani to appear before the Fulton special grand jury (he had been refusing to appear).

Aug. 15, 2022: Federal U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May denies Graham’s bid to quash his subpoena, ruling that Willis “has shown extraordinary circumstances and a special need for Senator Graham’s testimony.” Graham announced that he’s appealing to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Aug. 17, 2022: Giuliani was informed that he was a target of the investigation. Afterward, he testified before the special grand jury for roughly six hours. (No doubt he was trying to persuade the grand jury not to indict him.)

Aug. 17, 2022: After negotiations between Gov. Brian Kemp and Willis’s office broke down, Kemp filed a motion seeking to quash his subpoena. About two weeks later, McBurney ruled that Kemp must testify, but delayed his testimony until after the November elections.

Aug. 25, 2022: The grand jury issued summons seeking testimony from former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell, adviser Boris Epshteyn, Lin Wood, and Atlanta data services firm Sullivan Strickler.

November 1, 2022: The Supreme Court ruled that Lindsay Graham must testify. (Lindsay Graham’s testimony has reportedly been rescheduled until November 22.)

November 15, 2022: Governor Brian Kemp testified before the grand jury.

November 15, 2022: A judge ordered Michael Flynn to testify.

November 16, 2022: Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified.

November 17, 2022: Mark Meadows appealed to the South Carolina Supreme Court in the hopes of getting out of testifying.

November 22, 2022: Lindsay Graham testified before a Georgia grand jury.

November 29, 2022: The South Carolina Supreme Court ordered Mark Meadows, chief of staff under Trump, to testify in the Georgia probe.

December 20, 2022: The Special Grand Jury wrapped up its work. What remained was for the Special Grand Jury to write up its final report. 

January 18, 2023: The Grand Jury report was in the hands of prosecutors. A judge ordered the report kept sealed until after charging decisions.

January 24, 2023: Fani Willis said charging decisions were “imminent.”

What comes next: Fani Willis is not bound by the recommendations in the Special Grand Jury Report, but following the recommendations of the report could give her “political cover.”

 If she wants to indict anyone as a result of this investigation, she would present the case before a regularly seated grand jury. Unlike the special grand jury, which was focused on just the elections inquiry, regular grand juries hear dozens of cases on any given day, from arson to murder. Willis would presumably re-present some evidence and testimony heard by the special grand jury and perhaps use portions of the special grand jury’s final report to bolster her argument.

March 20: We learned that Georgia prosecutors were considering obstruction charges and charges under Georgia’s RICO statute.

On April 18, Fani Willis filed a motion (which you can see here) seeking to disqualify one of the lawyers, Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow, from defending the fake electors from her simultaneous representation of multiple parties and prohibit her from any further participation in this matter. Willis reported that

• Last summer, Willis’s office also told the court that some of the fake electors would receive offers of immunity.

An offer of immunity is obviously good for people with criminal liability. It means they will not be prosecuted for the crimes being investigated as long as they tell the truth. A potential defendant would be stupid not to take that offer. Of course, Trump’s idea is that all people should be “loyal” to him, which means staying quiet and going to prison to protect him. We’ve already seen a case where potential witnesses against Trump were represented by Trump-paid lawyers. If the witnesses are represented by Trump-paid lawyers (or lawyers paid by Trump allies) the lawyer’s goal would likely be to get the witnesses to protect Trump when the witnesses expect their lawyers to look out for their best interests. (Click here and scroll down for the example of Cassidy Hutchinson.)

The Court did not order Willis’s office to reveal which electors could potentially receive immunity from prosecution. Instead, the Court instructed the two lawyers, Pierson and Debrow, to extend a blanket offer of immunity to each to gauge each elector’s interest.

• • On August 5, 2022, Pierson reported to the court that she and Debrow told their clients about the offers of immunity but none were interested.
  • On April 12th and 14th 2023, the DA’s office interviewed the electors and learned that they were never presented with offers of immunity. Oops. And wow. This means that the defense lawyers did not tell the potential defendants that offers of immunity were on the table. Instead, the defense lawyers lied to the prosecution and said none of the defendants were interested in offers of immunity. As Willis said to the court, “This situation reached an impracticable and ethical mess”

And that’s not all. The DA’s office, during these interviews, also learned that one of the electors engaged in “acts that are violations of GA law” and that the other fake electors were not involved with those additional acts. Willis did not reveal in this motion what those illegal acts were.

What obviously happened was at the eleventh hour, Willis learned that she had more cooperating witnesses. The more cooperating witnesses, the better if the goal is to try to get the people at the top.

April 24: No surprise, a week after Willis filed her motion to disqualify Debrow from further representation in the matter, we learned that Willis’s timetable was delayed “in part because a number of witnesses have sought to cooperate as the investigation has neared an end.”

Willis also said that she would have charging decisions between July 11 and September 1. Her reason for giving these dates was so that law enforcement could prepare extra security. The announcement did something else interesting. Remember when Trump got all that attention when he told people he was about to be arrested in New York and he wasn’t arrested? By announcing dates, Willis steals Trump’s thunder and prevents him from creating chaos with law enforcement.