Trump election investigation: grand jury testimony running into the night as DA appears determined to finish presenting evidence – live

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The Fulton county district attorney appears determined to finish presenting evidence in the Trump case to the grand jury tonight, according to multiple people familiar – meaning indictments could come tonight.

Inside the courthouse, people are currently having dinner. Judge Robert McBurney, who is the duty judge presiding over any grand jury returns, tells reporters he’s been informed he needs to stay for another hour.

Georgia DA Fani Willis prepares to face off with Trump

Willis is expected to ask a grand jury this week to indict former president Donald Trump and others for their attempts to overturn the election. The announcement of criminal charges, part of a sprawling racketeering case, will be the culmination of more than two years of work.

In early 2021, Willis had just been elected district attorney when she announced plans to investigate Trump. She took office by unseating her former boss, who had served as the DA in Georgia’s most populous county (which includes the state’s capital, Atlanta) for six terms, or 23 years.

Her investigation has focused on Trump’s efforts to subvert the will of Georgia’s voters, including his campaign’s plot to assemble a slate of fake electors and Trump’s phone call to Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find 11,780 votes”, which would make him the winner over Joe Biden in the state.

In her first term as DA – and amid ongoing conversations about criminal justice reform in Georgia and beyond – Willis has not only prepared to face off with a former president and his legal team, she’s also been tough on crime in a number of other ways, too.

Read more:

Donald Trump case tracker: where does each investigation stand?

Twice impeached and now arrested and indicted three times. Donald Trump faces serious criminal charges in New York, Florida and Washington over a hush-money scheme during the 2016 election, his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

As Trump prepares for those cases to go to trial, the former president is simultaneously reeling from a verdict that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation toward writer E Jean Carroll. A New York jury awarded Carroll, who accused Trump of assaulting her in 1996, $5m in damages.

And more criminal charges could be on the way for Trump in Georgia. Here is where each case against Trump stands:

The Fulton county grand jury is still hearing from witnesses.

It’s unclear when we will hear about charges. Judge Robert McBurney appeared before reporters briefly, but did not indicate whether the presentation of charges would happen tonight.

A two-page docket, which appeared to have been posted on the Fulton county court website and then removed, has set of a flurry of speculation this afternoon. The Reuters news agency cited that docket in a story that charges against Donald Trump had been filed. But the agency later revised the report, saying that the Georgia was “set to charge” the former president.

The Fulton county clerk said the court had “learned of a fictitious document that has been circulated online”, an apparent reference to the Reuters report on the docket that detailed racketeering and conspiracy charges against Trump.

More clarity is expected to come at 5pm local time.

George Chidi, the independent journalist who was subpoenaed to appear before the Fulton county grand jury, was just seen entering the courthouse where he is expected to testify.

Journalist George Chidi prepares to enter the Fulton county Courthouse, Monday, 14 August 2023 in Atlanta. Photograph: Ben Gray/AP

Chidi had previously written for The Intercept about how he happened upon “a semi-clandestine meeting of Republicans pretending to be Georgia’s official electors in December 2020”.

He had testified about the experience once already, to a separate special grand jury that was investigating election interference in an advisory capacity. Today he is expected to explain what he witnessed once again, to the new grand jury this week.

He wrote for The Intercept:

I went to Georgia’s state Capitol on December 14, 2020, to watch the solemn and usually forgettable ritual casting of electoral votes. As Stacey Abrams led the Democratic delegation upstairs, Republicans sat in a reserved room on the Capitol’s second floor to prepare a competing — and potentially illegal — slate of their own.

The Republicans threw me out of the room moments after I entered, camera phone in hand, going live on Facebook. When I asked what kind of gathering they were having, they told me it was an “education meeting.” As it turns out, Donald Trump’s election team had sent an email the previous night, instructing the group to maintain “complete secrecy.”

Election madness wasn’t incipient in 2020; it was happening all around us. And I get thrown out of a lot of places. So I didn’t think much about it beyond tweeting a still from the Facebook Live, asking my friends to identify the people in the picture.

But because I was lied to and thrown out, it confirmed that the legislators were acting in secret, that they didn’t want the press or public to know what they were doing. That specific bit of information has apparently been important enough to ask me to convey it to a grand jury — again.

Judge in Trump hush-money case won't recuse himself

The judge in Donald Trump’s Manhattan hush-money criminal case has rejected the former president’s demand to step aside, denying defense claims that he’s biased against the Republican election front-runner because he’s given cash to Democrats and his daughter is a party consultant, the Associated Press writes.

The agency further reports:

New York Judge Juan Manuel Merchan acknowledged in a ruling that he made several small donations to Democratic causes during the 2020 campaign, including $15 to Trump’s Democratic rival, Joe Biden, but said he is certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial.”

Removing himself from the case, which is due to go to trial next March, “would not be in the public interest,” Merchan wrote. His six-page ruling echoed a state court ethics panel’s recent opinion that endorsed his continued involvement in the Trump case.

The decision on recusal was entirely up to Merchan. There is so far no comment from Trump lawyers or the prosecutor, the Manhattan district attorney.

Trump pleaded not guilty in April in Manhattan to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The charges relate to hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign to bury allegations that he had extramarital sexual encounters. He has denied wrongdoing.

Trump’s lawyers wanted Merchan off the case in part because his daughter, Loren, is a political consultant whose firm has worked for some of Trump’s Democratic rivals and because, they contend, he acted inappropriately by involving himself in plea negotiations last year for Trump’s longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg. Merchan said he previously rejected that argument when asked to exit the Trump Organization case.

Merchan said in his ruling that Trump’s lawyers had “failed to demonstrate that there exists concrete, or even realistic reasons for recusal to be appropriate, much less required on these grounds.”

Donald Trump appears with his lawyer Todd Blanche by video conferencing before Justice Juan Merchan during a hearing before his trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in Manhattan state court in New York, May 23, 2023. Photograph: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters

Summary of the day so far

• The indictment of Donald Trump over his attempted election subversion in Georgia loomed closer as prosecutors began presenting to a grand jury in Atlanta on Monday. The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, is expected early this week to seek multiple charges against more than a dozen defendants that could include the former president, sources told the Guardian.

• A former Democratic state senator, Jen Jordan, former Democratic state representative, Bee Nguyen, and Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the office of the Georgia secretary of state, were seen at the Fulton county courthouse.

• Former Georgia Lt Gov Geoff Duncan and independent journalist George Chidi, both expected to appear on Tuesday at the Fulton County grand jury hearing, are set to testify on Monday instead. Chidi said the change was because prosecutors are “moving faster than they thought”.

• A two-page docket report posted to the Fulton county court website indicated charges against Trump including racketeering, conspiracy and false statements. The appearance of the report set off a flurry of news media activity, but then the document vanished. A spokesperson for the district attorney said reports “that those charges were filed [are] inaccurate. Beyond that we cannot comment.”

• Trump appeared to warn former Georgia lieutenant governor, Geoff Duncan, against testifying before the Fulton County grand jury in the state’s 2020 election investigation. The former president’s Truth Social post came days after the US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s January 6 case in Washington DC, warned against making “inflammatory statements” that could intimidate witnesses in that trial.

• Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr’s campaign tried to walk back on comments he made in support of a nationwide abortion restriction after the first three months of pregnancy.

• Lawyers for Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden who has been under a years-long federal investigation over failing to pay taxes and, separately, illegally possessing a gun, said that part of the plea deal which unexpectedly fell apart in July remains “valid and binding”, in a Sunday court filing.

• The US navy became the third branch of the military to no longer have a Senate-confirmed leader for the first time in history, as Republican senator Tommy Tuberville continues his blockade on military nominations over the Pentagon’s abortion policy.

Mary Yang

Lawyers for Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden who has been under a years-long federal investigation over failing to pay taxes and, separately, illegally possessing a gun, said that part of the plea deal which unexpectedly fell apart in July remains “valid and binding”, in a Sunday court filing.

Federal prosecutors, led by US attorney David Weiss, had on Friday asked the court to cancel its request that the two sides reach a renewed agreement on the deal “since there is no longer a plea agreement or diversion agreement for the Court to consider”.

But Hunter Biden’s lawyers said the guilty pleas were “separate and independent” from the diversion agreement that is set to drop his felony gun charges after two years. They said the diversion agreement was executed at the July hearing even as the overall deal collapsed and Hunter Biden intends to abide by its terms.

The court has “acknowledged in its filings agreeing to the public disclosure of the Plea and Diversion Agreements – that the parties have a valid and binding bilateral Diversion Agreement”, Hunter Biden’s lawyers wrote in their Sunday filing, responding to prosecutors’ Friday motion.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has accused Fulton County of being “downright pathetic” after a list of criminal charges in Georgia against Donald Trump briefly appeared on its website before it was removed.

A judge presiding over grand jury deliberations in Fulton County has said cameras will be allowed into the courtroom if Donald Trump is indicted this week.

Fulton County superior court judge Robert McBurney was quoted by the Messenger as saying:

If a grand jury presents an indictment, that’s usually in the afternoon, and you can film and photograph that.

Unlike federal or Manhattan courts, where Trump appeared for his three previous arraignments, Georgia law requires that cameras be allowed into judicial proceedings with a judge’s approval, according to NBC.

Open courtrooms “are an indispensable element of an effective and respected judicial system”, the Georgia supreme court stated in a 2018 order.

Experts agree that in Donald Trump’s conclusive 2020 defeat by Joe Biden there was no widespread electoral fraud in Georgia or any other state.

The federal indictment secured by the special counsel Jack Smith this month contained extensive evidence that Trump was repeatedly told as much but advanced his lie regardless.

In Atlanta on Monday, prosecutors began presenting to a grand jury.

A former Democratic state senator, Jen Jordan, told reporters as she left the Fulton county courthouse she was questioned for about 40 minutes. News outlets reported that a former Democratic state representative, Bee Nguyen, and Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the office of the Georgia secretary of state, were seen arriving too.

Nguyen and Jordan attended state legislative hearings in December 2020, during which the former New York mayor turned Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and other aides made false claims of widespread fraud in Georgia.

The Trump lawyer John Eastman appeared during at least one of those hearings, saying the election had not been held in compliance with Georgia law and lawmakers should appoint a new slate of electors.

Sterling and the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, pushed back against allegations of widespread problems. Both are Republicans.

On 2 January 2021, Trump called Raffensperger to say officials should help “find” the votes he needed to beat Biden. The release of a recording of that call prompted Willis to open her investigation.

Georgia grand jury witnesses to testify today because prosecutors 'moving faster' than anticipated

Former Georgia Lt Gov Geoff Duncan and independent journalist George Chidi are expected to testify today before the Fulton county grand jury hearing the Donald Trump 2020 election subversion case.

Chidi, who was scheduled to appear Tuesday before the grand jury, said he will instead testify today because prosecutors are “moving faster than they thought”.

Duncan was also scheduled to appear in front of the grand jury, but an official with direct knowledge of Duncan’s hearing told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he will now meet with grand jurors on Monday.

Here’s the full statement by former state representative Bee Nguyen, who confirmed she testified to a Fulton County grand jury hearing the Donald Trump 2020 election subversion case earlier today.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Patricia Murphy:

Here’s a copy of the document that the Fulton County court reportedly published on their website before taking it down without explanation, which listed several criminal charges against Donald Trump related to his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia.

The document was dated today, 14 August, and named Trump as the defendant. The charges listed in the document include:

• Violation Of The Georgia Rico (Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations) Act

• Solicitation Of Violation Of Oath By Public Officer

• Conspiracy To Commit Impersonating A Public Officer

• Conspiracy To Commit Forgery in the First Degree

• Conspiracy To Commit False Statements and Writings

• Conspiracy To Commit Filing False Documents

• Filing False Documents

• Solicitation of Violation of Oath By Public Officer

• False Statements And Writings

Two former Georgia state lawmakers testify to Fulton County grand jury

Former Democratic state representative for Georgia Bee Nguyen has confirmed that she testified on Monday to the Fulton County grand jury hearing the Donald Trump 2020 election subversion case.

Earlier we reported that former state senator Jen Jordan testified before the Fulton County grand jury for about 40 minutes on Monday.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Tamar Hallerman, who has been reporting from the Fulton County courthouse, writes that the district attorney’s office confirms no indictments have yet been made in the Trump election interference case.

Here’s more on that Reuters report that said the state of Georgia appeared set to charge Donald Trump with a variety of charges, including racketeering, conspiracy and false statements.

According to Reuters, the Fulton County court’s website briefly posted a document appearing to detail several criminal charges against Trump, before taking the document down without explanation.

The two-page document cited the “Violation Of The Georgia Rico (Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations) Act”, “Solicitation Of Violation Of Oath By Public Officer”, “Conspiracy To Commit False Statements and Writings” and “Conspiracy To Commit Forgery in the First Degree” among other charges listed, Reuters said.

The document was dated 14 August and named the former president, the news agency said.

A spokesperson for the DA’s office responded:

The Reuters report that those charges were filed is inaccurate. Beyond that we cannot comment.

Georgia court publishes then removes docket of charges against Donald Trump - report

The Fulton County district attorney’s office said no charges have been filed yet against in the case investigating Donald Trump and others for their attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

It comes after Reuters reported that the state of Georgia appeared set to charge Trump with a variety of charges, including racketeering, conspiracy and false statements.

The Reuters report cited a two-page docket report posted to the Fulton County court’s website, which it said is no longer available on the court’s website.