Fake electors are cooperating with Atlanta DA’s probe of Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia election results

Fifteen and one-half months into Joe Biden’s presidency, former President Donald Trump continues to be the subject of a variety of investigations — including one by Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, who has been probing his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the Peach State. And Willis’ colleagues, according to CNN sources, have interviewed several Trump supporters who were fake electors after that election.

Zachary Cohen and Sara Murray of CNN report, “Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office appears to be trying to determine whether the pro-Trump electors in Georgia had any knowledge that their actions may have been a component of a broader and potentially illegal plot to pressure election officials and overturn Joe Biden’s victory, a source told CNN. Biden won Georgia by a nearly 12,000-vote margin in 2020 — the first Democrat to carry the state in 28 years.”

Georgia, once a deep red state, has evolved into a swing state and now has two Democratic U.S. senators: the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Trump has refused to admit that Biden won Georgia, and he deeply resents Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both conservative Republicans, for acknowledging Biden as the legitimate winner in the Peach State.

Georgia was one of the Biden states where Trump supporters falsely claimed to be Electoral College electors; others ranged from Michigan to Arizona. And some fake electors, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported in January, even went so far as to distribute bogus Electoral College certificates falsely claiming that Trump won their states in the 2020 election.

According to Cohen and Murray, “The pro-Trump electors who have met with prosecutors in Georgia, including the state’s Republican Party Chairman David Shafer, were reassured that they are currently considered witnesses, rather than subjects or targets, in the investigation — a notable distinction that suggests the Atlanta-area district attorney does not view their actions as criminal at this time, two of the sources told CNN. The interviews with pro-Trump electors in Georgia, which have not been previously reported, are the first indication that the Fulton County DA has already begun looking into the matter — adding to an array of other probes by DOJ, the House Select Committee investigating January 6 and other states where alternate slates were put forward.”

The CNN reporters note that although Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco “previously told CNN that the Justice Department is investigating the fake electors scheme,” the pro-Trump fake electors “who are cooperating with the state inquiry in Georgia haven’t yet been contacted by anyone at the FBI, Justice Department or relevant U.S. attorneys’ offices.”