Topline
Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis and her team of prosecutors have text messages that connect some of former President Donald Trump’s legal team to a voting system breach in a rural Georgia county, CNN reported—as Willis prepares for indictments in her long-running investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis and her team of prosecutors have text messages that connect … [+]
Key Facts
Texts and emails obtained by prosecutors suggest the early 2021 breach in Coffee County—in which people attempted to access voting machines to create evidence of voter fraud—was led by members of Trump’s team, rather than local Trump supporters acting alone, people close to the investigation told CNN.
The text messages reportedly show members of Trump’s legal team—including former New York City mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani—and people they hired received a “written invitation” to access the voting machines, as they sought to access the county’s voting system before the certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral win.
The texts showed the invitation was written by Misty Hampton, a former county official who previously made the baseless claim that Dominion voting machines could be easily manipulated, CNN said.
CNN reported Giuliani, Trump attorney Sidney Powell and members of a team hired to investigate voter fraud in Georgia knew of the “written invitation” and indicated in a December White House meeting they were excited about obtaining “voluntary access” to the machines.
The Georgia Secretary of State’s office has called the Coffee County breach “unauthorized access”—Georgia law requires permission from the Secretary of State before any software is “loaded onto or maintained or used on computers on which the election management system software is located.”
Giuliani’s lawyer Robert Costello told CNN the former mayor “had nothing to do with” the breach, adding “you can’t attach Rudy Giuliani to Sidney Powell’s crackpot idea.”
Forbes has reached out to Hampton and a representative for Giuliani.
What To Watch For
Later this week, Willis is expected to ask a grand jury to charge more than a dozen people in her investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss. It’s not clear who Willis will seek to indict.
Chief Critic
Trump took to Truth Social early Sunday to bash Willis and her investigation. “The only Election Interference that took place in Fulton County, Georgia, was done by those that Rigged and Stole the Election, not by me, who simply complained that the Election was Rigged and Stolen,” Trump posted. He went on to add that Willis is “publicity seeking” and not “interested in Justice,” saying in another post that she “should instead focus on the record number of murders in Atlanta!”
Key Background
Willis’ initial investigation into Trump stemmed from a call with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) in which Trump told him to “find” enough votes to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The probe was extended to include the breach in Coffee County—a rural southern Georgia county that Trump won by an almost 30-point margin in 2020—once Willis became aware of it in August 2022. The breach was successful, and a team of forensics experts with the firm Sullivan Strickler spent hours—under a local GOP chair and fake elector’s supervision—examining the machines and copying the data and software from the machines on January 7, 2021. The Associated Press reported that the company thought its “clients had the necessary permission,” and that Powell paid the firm $26,000 for the day. Trump has tried to disqualify Willis’s office from continuing its investigation or prosecuting him for alleged election interference, but in late July a superior court judge ruled against Trump’s request to toss out the case. The grand jury that must vote to indict a defendant for formal charges has already been seated, meaning an indictment could come at any time. A special grand jury with the power to investigate wrongdoing—but not to hand down indictments—reportedly recommended charges against multiple unknown people earlier this year. If Willis’ case leads to a conviction of Trump, the former president could not pardon himself due to the state-level nature of the alleged crime and, if Trump is indicted, it would be his fourth indictment since leaving office.
Further Reading
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/08/13/georgia-prosecutors-have-texts-linking-trump-allies-to-voting-system-breach-report-says-as-possible-charges-loom/