Trump prepares for his fourth indictment for election interference in Georgia

Four times in four months. Former U.S. President Donald Trump appears poised to be indicted again this week. This time, in southern Georgia. A grand jury heard at least two witnesses Monday and Tuesday in prosecutor Fani Williams' investigation into possible interference to alter the state's election outcome. It is expected that immediately after those testimonies, the grand jury will give the green light to the indictment against the former president. The case will be added to the rest of the accusations to complicate what is already promised as an electoral campaign dominated by the judicial problems of the former president.

Trump himself, always eager to offer scoops about himself, took his fourth indictment for granted. "It is my understanding through illegal leaks to fake news outlets that the fake Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis desperately wants to indict me on the ridiculous charge of rigging the 2020 election. No, I didn't manipulate that election!" he wrote on his social network, Truth.

A plea that the Fulton County court briefly posted on its website and withdrew almost immediately, but seen by Reuters, named the former president as a defendant and cited charges of violating the state's anti-blackmail law, conspiracy to make false statements, conspiracy to falsify documents and soliciting a public official to violate the oath of office. It is unknown why the document, which Williams has called "inaccurate," was published and deleted, according to the news agency.

If the accusation is confirmed, the case will be added to the three already dragged by the former tenant of the White House and current Republican candidate to return to the presidency. The first indictment came in March, when the Manhattan prosecutor charged him with accounting falsification in connection with payments to buy a porn actress's silence about her alleged sexual relationship. In June came the second: special prosecutor Jack Smith held him responsible for violating the Espionage Act by keeping classified documents from his presidential period without permission in his private residence in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. On the 2nd, Smith again filed charges against him, this time in the most serious case so far: the alleged interference of the president in the attempts to alter the 2020 election results.

Classified documents that Donald Trump allegedly stored in a bathroom of his Florida residence after his departure from the White House.HANDOUT (AFP)

Williams is expected to file charges related to the case also against a dozen Trump aides, including possibly former President Rudy Giuliani's personal lawyer. The former mayor of New York recently admitted that he had lied about the practice of two election officials by claiming the existence of fraud.

The Georgia case ties in with that of the federal special prosecutor, but sticks to attempts to change the results at the polls in that state. Specifically, in Fulton County. Voters supported the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden – the winner of those US elections – in November 2020, although only by a slim majority of less than 12,000 votes. In a recorded phone call, Trump spoke with Georgia's secretary of state, fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, on Jan. 2, 2021, to urge him to reverse the result. "I just want to find 11,780 votes," one more than Biden's garners, Trump is heard asking in the audio.

"Incorrect data"

In the conversation, the then outgoing president – he had 18 days left in the White House – begs, praises, insists and warns Raffensperger, always with the argument he has maintained since his electoral defeat: that the real winner was him and the official data are the result of an immense tongo. The official did not agree. Biden's victory had been legitimate. "The data you handle is incorrect," Raffensperger retorts to Trump in that talk.

The now presidential candidate maintains that he only made "a perfect call of protest" when phoning the official, as he said Monday in Truth, his social network. The tycoon encourages again the argument that has been outlined as he has received indictment after indictment and that has become the basis of his electoral strategy: that all his judicial problems are part of a conspiracy of Democratic politicians and related media to prevent him from returning to the White House and can become a champion of ordinary Republicans. "Why wasn't this case filed two and a half years ago? Electoral interference!" he protests.

In addition to the phone call to Raffensperger, Willis has also investigated illicit computer access to electronic voting machine systems in a rural Georgia county and a plot to use fake voters in an attempt to capture votes from that swing state, which at the time was shaping up to be decisive for the national outcome of the election as well as defeating Biden.

Rejecting false conspiracies

The two witnesses who have publicly confirmed that they had been summoned to testify are journalist George Chidi and former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan. The former senior official, like the rest of the state's top hierarchy, has been very blunt in rejecting Trump's false conspiracy theories about the results of the 2020 election. A position supported by their voters in a state that was once pure Republican and that in the last 15 years has been oscillating to more Democratic positions. Gov. Brian Kemp, one of the Republicans who has been most vocal in dismissing fraud, was re-elected by a comfortable majority in last November's midterm elections.

Although at first glance the case seems more limited than, for example, the one presented by Smith around the great electoral hoax of 2020, an indictment in Georgia could entail additional legal complications for the former president.

Trump has hinted that, if he becomes president again, he would proclaim a self-pardon to close his cases. Or he could appoint a like-minded person at the head of the Justice Department to shelve the federal charges. But in the case of Georgia, being a state case, it could do neither.

"Not only could he not pardon himself, but the pardon process in Georgia means that Governor Kemp couldn't either. There is a panel [that decides the] pardons. It's a more complicated process," former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti told CNN on Saturday. "I also couldn't close the investigation in the same way."

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