Grand jury selected to consider Donald Trump election fraud case

A US grand jury assembled in Georgia is set to consider evidence against ex-president Donald Trump over efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The grand jury, based in Atlanta, may decide whether Mr Trump should face criminal charges for trying to overturn his narrow loss in the state.

The Republican has denied wrongdoing, calling the case a “witch hunt”.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Wallis, a Democrat, launched the investigation in early 2021.

The two-and-a-half year probe has grown into a sprawling inquiry into various efforts by Mr Trump and his allies to sway the election results in his favour.

Those efforts include a January 2021 call between Mr Trump and the state’s chief elections officer, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the then-president suggested state officials could “find” more than 11,000 votes – enough to give him a victory in that state.

In a recording of the call, Mr Raffensperger is heard replying that Georgia’s results are correct.

In the months after he left the White House, Mr Trump continued to make unsubstantiated allegations of widespread electoral fraud and claimed that votes were stolen from him.

But Mr Trump – currently the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination – continues to deny the 2020 presidential election results, and has called the probe a “political witch hunt”, describing his call with Mr Raffensperger as “perfect”.

There has already been a grand jury considering the Georgia case. Over six months last year, a special purpose grand jury was assembled and interviewed dozens of witnesses, including several prominent Republicans.

It had the power to issue subpoenas – a summons for evidence – and produce a final report that could make recommendations but it did not have the power to charge a person.

The special grand jury found no widespread election fraud in Georgia, but did recommend multiple charges, known as indictments, for alleged perjury.

Much of the special grand jury’s report was hidden from the public in order to protect the rights of “potential future defendants”, the judge overseeing the case said.

But a brief unsealed section of the report said “a majority of the grand jury believes that perjury may have been committed by one or more of the witnesses testifying before it”. The unsealed portions do not reveal which witnesses may have lied under oath.

On Tuesday, a new grand jury term begins in Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta and surrounding suburbs. Two 26-member panels were selected, one of which is expected to handle the case against Mr Trump and his allies.

To bring criminal charges against the former president, the district attorney, Ms Willis, and her team must present her case to one of the grand juries assembled on Tuesday.

Ms Wallis wrote in a letter to local officials that potential indictments in the case could come between 11 July and 1 September, which coincides with Fulton County’s latest two-month term for its grand juries.

Mr Trump is also facing charges in two separate criminal investigations in New York and Florida, which he denies, and was ordered to pay millions of dollars to a writer after being found liable for sexual abuse.