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US prosecutors present evidence against Trump in Georgia election case
The case is the fourth brought against the 77-year-old Republican this year and could lead to the first televised trial of a former president - a watershed moment in US history - featuring charges typically used to bring down mobsters.
US prosecutors present evidence against Trump in Georgia election case
Georgia's courts are also more transparent than the federal system, meaning there is no bar to the case being televised from the first preliminary hearing onwards. / Photo: AP / AP

Prosecutors in Atlanta who have been investigating whether then-president Donald Trump and his allies illegally meddled in the 2020 election in Georgia have begun presenting their case to a grand jury.

Former Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan, who had been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury, said as she left the Fulton County courthouse late on Monday morning that she had been questioned for about 40 minutes.

News outlets reported that former Democratic state Rep. Bee Nguyen and Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the secretary of state's office, were seen arriving at the courthouse earlier Monday.

For two and a-half years, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating actions taken by Trump and others in their efforts to overturn his narrow loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden.

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Infamous phone call

Barriers and street closures around the courthouse in downtown Atlanta, as well as statements made by Willis, had indicated that a presentation to a grand jury was likely to begin this week.

Nguyen and Jordan both attended legislative hearings in December 2020 during which former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and others made false claims of widespread election fraud in Georgia.

Trump lawyer John Eastman also appeared during at least one of those hearings and said the election had not been held in compliance with Georgia law and that lawmakers should appoint a new slate of electors.

Sterling and his boss, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — both Republicans — forcefully pushed back against allegations of widespread problems with Georgia's election.

TrumpfamouslycalledRaffensperger on January 2, 2021, and suggested the state's top elections official could help "find" the votes Trump needed to beat Biden. It was the release of a recording of that phone call that prompted Willis to open her investigation about a month later.

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SOURCE:TRTWorld and agencies