As potential indictments loom in Georgia, former president Donald Trump has filed a motion aimed at neutralizing the Fulton County investigation into his conduct after he lost the 2020 election.
Trump’s lawyers on Friday filed separate petitions with the Fulton County Superior Court as well as the Georgia Supreme Court, asking them to intervene with the ongoing grand jury process.
In the motions, Trump asked the courts to dismiss evidence gathered by a special grand jury and ban prosecutors from using it against him before a newly empaneled grand jury that has charging powers. He also asked the courts to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from any related proceedings.
He further argued that allowing the case to proceed would lead to “a violation of his fundamental constitutional rights” while he “seeks his Party’s nomination for the Presidency of the United States.”
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Throughout the investigation, Willis used a “special purpose grand jury” to hear evidence from 75 witnesses including Trump advisers, his former attorneys, White House aides and Georgia officials. But Trump’s lawyers argued that these special grand juries are themselves unconstitutional.
“A regular Fulton County grand jury could return an indictment any day that will have been based on a report and predicate investigative process that were wholly without authority. It is one thing to indict a ham sandwich. To indict the mustard-stained napkin that it once sat on is quite another,” Trump’s lawyers argued in their filing.
The former president has made several attempts to derail the state-level investigation into his alleged involvement in election tampering in an effort to overturn the results in Georgia in 2020.
Willis has indicated that final charging decisions could come as soon as next month.
