Longtime Trump ally Rudy Giuliani testified for some six hours Wednesday before the special grand jury connected to a Fulton County criminal investigation into pro-Trump election meddling after the 2020 presidential race. (Fulton County is in Georgia.)
Trump, it seems, is concerned. “So, let me get this straight!” he complained on his social media site Truth Social late Wednesday. “In the Great State of Georgia, if you want to challenge or protest Election results in any way, shape, or form (despite the fact that in Atlanta, murders and crime are the highest in the Nation, with many people dying each month – at numbers never seen before), they will charge you and put you in jail. But if you kill people, you will quickly be set free to murder again. Isn’t there something “slightly” wrong with this scenario? A PERFECT PHONE CALL!”
Nobody is charged or jailed in connection to an election challenge in the state of Georgia in the context Trump means. (Nobody is charged or jailed in connection to the Fulton County probe, led by District Attorney Fani Willis, at all.) There’s no real-world evidence for the strange argument those suspected of involvement in political corruption are treated more harshly in Georgia than accused murderers. The call to which Trump is referring is likely his phone conversation with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who the then-president implored to “find” enough votes to flip the state, which Biden won. Trump and his allies aren’t under scrutiny for simply protesting the results of an election. They’re under investigation for a multi-pronged and multi-level conspiracy to alternately deceive and intimidate Georgia officials into taking action that would have itself amounted to illegal meddling with the election outcome via discarding legally cast votes. They weren’t just holding signs.
Late Wednesday, Trump also addressed a story in The Washington Post reporting on struggles in bulking up the experience and expertise in Trump’s legal team. Trump insisted, as could be expected, that such struggles don’t exist. “The WAPO story that “Trump is scrambling to add seasoned lawyers” to the Mar-a-Lago Raid case is, as usual, FAKE NEWS,” the ex-president angrily ranted. “I already have excellent and experienced lawyers – am very happy with them. This is highly political prosecutorial misconduct, I have not been charged with anything and, most importantly, I did nothing wrong. Thank you!” The reported push for new lawyers is in the context of the federal investigation into the handling of Trump administration records that recently led to the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, to which Trump referred Wednesday.
To be clear, one of his lawyers (Alina Habba) sports professional experience including time as general counsel at a parking garage company. Another (Christina Bobb) used to work as a host on One America News, a conspiratorial, far-right outlet. Trump can point to former federal prosecutors including Evan Corcoran on his personal legal team, but there’s more to what’s unfolding.
