DONALD TRUMP MAY be in trouble in Fulton County, Georgia. But unlike the recent indictment of him in a federal court in Washington, DC, he may not be alone.
Three sources who have spoken with prosecutors tell Rolling Stone that they believe that Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis is likely to indict not just Trump, but a number of his associates involved in attempting to overturn the election, as well.
“It really seems like they’re coming for everyone,” says one lawyer who has repeatedly dealt with the prosecutors in this criminal probe. “Based on what I know, Willis and her team do not seem to be stopping at Donald Trump. The scope for this [likely coming indictment] is probably going to be a hell of a lot wider than that…and round up a significant number of people.”
The Fulton County DA’s office has declined to comment on what will occur with an indictment, and only she knows for sure who ultimately will be hit with charges.
Still, some of Trump’s own lawyers, as well as other attorneys retained by his election-denying allies, are already preparing for the very real possibility that Trump will have plenty of company in an upcoming indictment. Lawyers have already outlined legal strategies, memos, and other material that factor in their expectation that an array of these Trump subordinates will face charges alongside him, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Trump’s team is in part basing their expectation of wider charges on the subject matter of prosecutors’ witness grillings, as well as what the DA has asked for. Those inquiries include granular details of what certain Trump allies were doing in the weeks following Election Day 2020. Figures of particularly high interest have included, but aren’t limited to, the once obscure lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman, and Rudy Giuliani, sources who’ve dealt with the prosecutors tell Rolling Stone.
The Fulton County district attorney’s office and attorneys for Trump, Eastman, and Giulaini did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Wednesday flatly denied that she had a relationship with a former client and other rumors spread by former President Donald Trump in a new campaign ad.
In an email to her colleagues, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Willis called the information in a television spot bankrolled by the Trump campaign “derogatory and false.” She urged her staff not to respond to any of the allegations.
“You may not comment in any way on the ad or any of the negativity that may be expressed against me, your colleagues, this office in the coming days, weeks or months,” Willis wrote in the email, sent early Wednesday. “We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any.”
A Willis spokesman declined to comment.
In the minute-long ad, titled “The Fraud Squad,” the narrator refers to Willis as “Biden’s newest lackey.” It says that Willis presided over a sharp rise of violent crimes in Atlanta and highlights her office being disqualified from investigating Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in her long-running election interference case due to a political conflict of interest.
But the most incendiary allegation is that Willis “got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting.” It cites as evidence a Jan. 25, 2023, article in Rolling Stone.
But the ad gets several facts wrong. The Rolling Stone article is an interview with YSL Mondo, one of Willis’ former clients in 2019 when she worked as a defense attorney, and it doesn’t make reference to any sort of affair.
In the interview, Mondo is quoted saying that he had some “auntie-to-nephew, mother-to-son type of talks” with Willis. But the article notes that the two didn’t talk after his case was resolved.
After Willis was elected DA, her office opened a racketeering case against the rapper Young Thug and the alleged street gang Young Slime Life. YSL Mondo co-founded the Young Slime Life music crew with Young Thug in the early 2010s, according to Rolling Stone, and in the article commented that the Willis who defended him is not the same person who would pursue such a racketeering case.
Trump made a similar baseless relationship allegation against Willis during a Tuesday campaign rally in Windham, N.H.
“I guess they say that she was after a certain gang and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member,” Trump said. “And this is a person that wants to indict me.”
Since then, his comments have been amplified by several right wing activists.
The Trump campaign paid $79,000 for “The Fraud Squad” ad to run on cable news channels in metro Atlanta between Aug. 9 and 13, according to Medium Buying, which tracks political ad spending.
As I said last week, Georgia Republicans will almost certainly try to use a law passed earlier this year and signed into law by former GA Secretary of State and current GOP Gov. Brian Kemp to remove Willis from office for "misconduct" with an "independent commission" whose members are of course appointed by Kemp. That law is currently being challenged in state court by four of Willis's fellow Georgia County DAs.
What Trump is doing with his ludicrous slime job is laying the false justification for doing just that. If the indictment includes several of the false slate of electors who are powerful members of the state Republican Party apparatus on RICO and fraud charges as I strongly suspect, then the pressure on Kemp and the commission to remove Willis will be overwhelming, hence the lawsuit filed last week.
We're most likely headed for a massive court battle to even see if Willis will be allowed to bring her case against Trump at all, delaying a possible trial for months, if not years. Willis will be attacked on all sides, and Trump is sending a message to anyone else poised to charge him: you're next.
And even if he is found guilty, Gov. Kemp will then be under pressure to pardon Trump, his lackeys, and all the state Republicans who joined in.
What I'm saying is don't expect Trump to end up in an Atlanta jail anytime soon.
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