Trump’s Next Criminal Charge Is Practically on the Calendar

Former President Donald Trump’s second criminal indictment looks all but certain to go down this summer. You could even mark it in your calendar: Sometime between July 11 and Sept. 1.

That’s because Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has formally asked local officials to beef up security during that window, when she plans to announce charging decisions in her long-running investigation of Trump’s attempt to reverse his 2020 election defeat in Georgia.

She wouldn’t need all that extra security if she weren’t planning to go after Trump himself, former prosecutors and legal experts say. 

“The Fulton DA’s letter makes it almost certain that Trump is getting indicted,” said Titus Nichols, an Atlanta-area defense lawyer and former prosecutor from the nearby Augusta Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office. “There is no other reason to send something in writing to the sheriff.”

The strong likelihood of a second Trump arrest, combined with the former president’s frontrunner status in the GOP 2024 presidential primary, creates the novel, almost surreal, probability that the next Republican presidential nominee is poised to enter the general election battling criminal charges in two different districts. Trump was indicted in Manhattan in April for allegedly falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payoff to a porn star who claimed she slept with him. 

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Trump’s battles with prosecutors seem to have solidified his support among hardcore Republicans, as demonstrated by a recent NBC poll, which found that two-thirds of GOP primary voters support Trump despite his New York arrest and other legal troubles. 

But conventional wisdom holds that Trump’s criminal nightmare is far more likely to hurt him in the general election, however, if he makes it through the primary. A recent CNN poll found that 60 percent of voters approve of Manhattan prosecutors’ decision to indict Trump. 

The question now becomes: What will happen if Trump is criminally indicted again in Atlanta this summer? And will a second indictment play out similarly to the first one, with Trump supporters limiting their outrage to mere threats? Or will they stage a more active protest in round two, when the arraignment takes place in a southern capital with far looser gun laws than in New York City? 

DA Willis asked Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat to prepare for a “significant public reaction” to her announcement, which she said would occur during the court’s fourth term of this year—a two-month period starting on July 11. Willis said she wanted to give Labat time to prep for possible attacks or violent demonstrations. 

“We have seen in recent years that some may go outside of public expressions of opinion that are protected by the First Amendment to engage in acts of violence that will endanger the safety of our community,” Willis wrote. “As leaders, it is incumbent upon us to prepare.” 

“Willis is highly unlikely to issue this letter if she’s not fully intending to charge Donald Trump, as opposed to not bringing charges against him or bringing charges only against lower-level figures,” wrote Andrew Weissmann, who served under former Special Counsel Bob Mueller during his investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, for MSNBC. “Why not write something shorter and sweeter that kicks the can down the road, if you are not anticipating a fight over an upcoming indictment?”

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Willis has reason to be concerned about possible unrest if she goes after Trump. 

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office was swamped with racist death threats, including inside one envelope that also contained a white powder (eventually proven harmless), after Trump was indicted. Trump fanned his supporters’ outrage by accusing Bragg and Willis, who are both Black, of being “racist” and targeting him out of political bias.  

A special purpose grand jury recommended that Willis bring charges against over a dozen people, including famous names and “potentially” Trump, the foreperson of the jury, Emily Kohrs, told media earlier this year. 

Trump’s attorneys in Atlanta downplayed the significance of Willis’ letter. 

“The public release of this letter does nothing more than set forth a potential timetable for decisions the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office previously announced would be coming,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in a statement. “On behalf of President Trump, we filed a substantive legal challenge for which the D.A.’s Office has yet to respond. We look forward to litigating that comprehensive motion which challenges the deeply flawed legal process and the ability of the conflicted D.A’s Office to make any charging decisions at all.” 

Trump has denied wrongdoing in all cases. But an indictment in Atlanta, if it indeed comes this summer, might not even be the last time Trump is criminally charged before the 2024 presidential election. 

Trump is also under investigation in two federal probes led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating Trump’s attempts to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election, and whether Trump broke the law by stashing sensitive government documents at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Correction: A previous version of this story referred to Augusta as a county. It is, in fact, a city in Georgia.