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DA Fani Willis’s Sending Out ‘Save The Date’ Cards For August

As of right now, Fulton County DA Fani Willis has set two weeks in August as the target dates for Trump’s likely grand jury indictments. Willis is being so careful with the case, she presented evidence to an advisory grand jury first. Now she has to request indictments from a regular grand jury. Via Vanity Fair:

The New York Times reports that, in a letter sent yesterday to 21 Fulton County officials, Willis announced that, due to security concerns surrounding her investigation and the potential criminal charges that could come from it, she will scale back staffing in her office by about 70% and have the majority of people work remotely between July 31 and August 18, when grand juries will be in session. (While a special grand jury spent months hearing evidence in the Trump investigation, Willis must now get approval from a regular grand jury for any possible indictments.) The district attorney noted in the Thursday letter that exceptions to the remote work plan would include “my leadership team” and “all armed investigators.” She added that she “respectfully request(s) that judges not schedule trials and in-person hearings during the weeks beginning Monday, Aug. 7, and Monday, Aug. 14.” As the Times notes, “the moves suggest that…Willis…is expecting a grand jury to unseal indictments during that time period.” The outlet also noted that Willis’s timetable was already pushed back at least once as she negotiated cooperation deals, so, obviously, that could happen again; however, the dates laid out in her most recent letter seem pretty specific.

For his part, Trump’s attorneys are still trying to quash the special grand jury’s final report, and get both Willis and the judge presiding over the inquiry thrown off the case. In response to that attempt, Willis wrote in a filing this week that Trump and Co. “are not content to follow the ordinary course of the law. They seek to ‘restrain’ a criminal investigation before any charges are filed or even sought.” In February, when asked about the recommendations the special grand jury made re: which individuals should be charged, jury forewoman Emily Kohrs told the Times it was “not a short list.” Asked whether the ex-president was on it, she added: “You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science.” Speaking to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in March, another juror said of the group’s report: “A lot’s gonna come out sooner or later. And it’s gonna be massive. It’s gonna be massive.”

Last year, Willis sent a letter to the Atlanta field office of the FBI, requesting a risk assessment of the courthouse in downtown Atlanta and for the bureau to “provide protective resources to include intelligence and federal agents,” noting that Trump had described her and other prosecutors investigating him as “vicious, horrible people” during a rally and demanded protests in their cities. Shortly before his indictment by the Manhattan district attorney for a series of hush money payments he made before the 2016 election, Trump called for “death and destruction.” In another letter, sent to the local sheriff last month, Willis laid out “the need for heightened security and preparedness in coming months due to this pending announcement.”

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