Topline
Former President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Monday that Georgia’s former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan “shouldn’t” testify in grand jury proceedings this week regarding allegations that Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election results in the state—and some legal analysts are saying the post could be perceived as witness intimidation or tampering.
A number of critics and legal analysts have denounced former President Donald Trump for witness ... [+]
Key Facts
Trump made the Truth Social post early Monday morning, saying he “barely” knows Duncan but that Duncan has been “a nasty disaster for those looking into the (Georgia) Election Fraud” because he refused to call a special session to investigate Trump’s claims that the election was stolen.
George Conway—an attorney and separated husband of former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway—and former U.S. attorney Barbara McQuade both took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to call the post “witness tampering,” with McQuade saying it was “witness tampering in real time.”
Ryan Goodman, former special counsel in the Department of Defense, tweeted a screenshot of Trump’s post alongside a screenshot of a Georgia law requiring that a judge find the defendant “poses no significant risk of intimidating witnesses” before approving bail.
CNN’s top legal analyst, Elie Honig, said the post is “straight-up witness tampering, witness intimidation.”
Duncan hasn’t responded to Trump’s attack, though he tweeted on Saturday that he had been called as a witness, saying, “I look forward to answering their questions around the 2020 election.”
Tangent
Trump’s “request’ that Duncan not testify comes just days after Judge Tanya Chutkan—who is presiding over the federal case against Trump for his alleged involvement in trying to overturn the 2020 election—said that if more “inflammatory” statements are made about the case, she’ll have more urgency to move quickly so as to prevent witness intimidation. The Associated Press reported Chutkan—who has been the subject of Trump’s posts—also said it’s possible for “arguably ambiguous statements” to be understood as intimidation of potential witnesses.
Key Background
A grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, is hearing evidence against Trump and is expected to vote on an indictment this week against multiple people involved in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. District Attorney Fani Willis’ office launched its probe—which stemmed from what Trump has long since referred to as a “perfect” call to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump entreated him to “find” enough votes to overturn the 2020 presidential election—in 2021. Her office is expected to seek indictments for more than a dozen people in connection with it. In addition to the call, prosecutors also reportedly have text messages showing Trump and his allies—including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell—were involved with a hack into voting software in Coffee County.
