FEARLESS SISTERS

Georgia's Fani Willis and New York's Letitia James Make the Case Against Donald Trump

By Stephen G. Hall, PhD

The 2020 presidential electoral cycle was one of the most contentious in American history. Until Donald J. Trump, never had a sitting president refused to acknowledge the lawful election of his successor. The lack of acknowledgment is one thing, but to take action to contravene the electoral process and certification at the state and federal level is quite another. Determined to hold on to the reins of power, former President Trump and his acolytes exerted pressure on the secretaries of state in mostly Republican states to either declare large numbers of absentee ballots as fraudulent or to refuse to certify the results. When these efforts failed in battleground states, Trump supporters, encouraged by a raucous speech by Trump at Washington, D.C.’s Ellipse park, stormed the United States Capitol on January 6 to prevent the certification of the votes from states by the U.S. Congress.

Although the violent assault on the Capitol by Trump supporters was the icing on the cake in the electoral drama, the run-up to these unprecedented events has proven equally fascinating. This was particularly the case in battleground states such as Arizona and Georgia. Georgia proved particularly troublesome for Trump because the state has been reliably Republican in past electoral cycles. The Republican loss of not only the presidential race but the subsequent election of two Democratic senators proved damaging to Republican morale.

Efforts by Trump and his campaign officials to reportedly sway the election through direct and indirect pressure on election officials, harassment of officials, tampering with the process, and recruiting fake electors deserve investigation. Although investigating these shenanigans is proving to be a daunting task, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is on the case. Willis is a graduate of Howard University and the Emory University School of Law. Having served as a prosecutor for 16 years in the Fulton County prosecutor’s office, she became district attorney on Jan. 1, 2021, and is the first woman elected to the position.

Willis is pursuing several lines of investigation that revolve around four issues. She is looking at potential criminal wrongdoing in calls Trump and his allies made to Georgia officials including false statements made to lawmakers, harassment of election officials, tampering with election systems in one county in southern Georgia, and attempting to send false electors to Washington, D.C. Willis opened a criminal investigation immediately following the highly publicized calls between Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Reportedly, Trump and his allies also put pressure on the state’s attorney general and governor to find votes to overturn President Joe Biden’s win. Willis is investigating this conduct under a Georgia law that prohibits the solicitation of electoral fraud. Willis is also investigating a series of statements made by Trump operatives involving widespread fraud in the Georgia electoral process. These statements were repeatedly uttered by Rudy Giuliani and other Trump campaign advisers and represent potential violations of a Georgia law that prohibits false statements to government. In this instance, Willis is pursuing this misconduct under a Georgia law that prohibits the solicitation of election fraud.

She is also examining calls made by Trump and others to Georgia officials after the election. In court filings, Willis has cited a Georgia statute prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud. One of the most interesting lines of investigation is the effort to send the names of supposed Trump electors from Georgia to Washington. This pattern is particularly disturbing. Prosecutors are trying to determine whether this project represented an effort in battleground states to create confusion and provide a reason for former Vice President Mike Pence to be unable to certify the election on January 6, 2021.

At present, the investigation is on hold due to the midterm elections. It is clear, however, as many legal observers note, that Georgia law has less-cumbersome procedures than the federal process being utilized by the January 6th Committee. Willis is building a case that targets multiple defendants and includes charges of conspiracy to commit election fraud and racketeering charges for coordinating a scheme to undermine an election. This investigation will determine the extent to which a former president and his campaign officials can— and will—be held accountable for inappropriate behavior in the context of the electoral process. It is clear that the outcome of this investigation will send reverberations throughout the nation’s political system.

Attorney General James Sues

Trump for Fraud in New York

When it comes to the woes of Donald Trump, when it rains, it pours. Not only is the former president facing a cascade of criminal and civil investigations from Florida to New York—many of which, like Willis’ probe, could land him in an orange jumpsuit—he faces yet another relentless female pursuer: Letitia James, the attorney general of New York. James is seeking to bankrupt the Trump Organization, the Trump family business responsible for financing Donald’s political rise, by bringing a $250 million suit against Trump, three of his children, and the company, accusing them of fraudulently misstating the value of various real estate assets to receive financial benefits in the form of more favorable loan and insurance rates and tax breaks.

Unlike Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has dragged his feet in bringing similar criminal charges against Trump despite convincing evidence pointing to his culpability, James has courageously plowed forward after a meticulous three-year investigation, seeking to have Trump pay for his numerous financial misdeeds. (James has also referred the ex-president to the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York for criminal prosecution based on her findings.) James, a Brooklynite and Howard University School of Law graduate, has a storied record for competence and integrity. She served as a public defender, an assistant state attorney general, and the first African American elected as New York City public advocate before, in 2018, becoming the first black person and the first woman to be elected as the state’s attorney general.

Will James succeed in her latest crusade? Trump himself is nervous. He continuously bullies James for everything from her weight to her political ambition, falsely claiming that she is waging a personal vendetta against him, yet in a recent deposition with James’ office, he pleaded the Fifth more than 440 times. However, with Trump being a very wealthy and powerful man who has slipped the noose of justice many times, the jury, as they say, is still out.