Georgia district attorney says she will ‘enforce the law without fear or favor’ following Trump call

The district attorney overseeing Atlanta said Monday that she will “enforce the law without fear or favor” if a case is referred to her office regarding President Trump’s controversial phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R.)

In a statement obtained by local outlet WSBTV, Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis said she found news reports about the weekend phone call “disturbing.”

“Anyone who commits a felony violation of Georgia law in my jurisdiction will be held accountable,” Willis said. “Once the investigation is complete, this matter, like all matters, will be handled by our office based on the facts and the law.”

Willis’s statement came after David Worley, the sole Democrat on Georgia’s state Board of Elections, called for a civil and criminal probe over a phone call in which Trump pressured Raffensperger (R) to “find” more votes for him. 

“It’s a crime to solicit election fraud, and asking the secretary to change the votes is a textbook definition of election fraud,” David Worley told The Washington Post, which first published the audio of Trump’s call on Sunday.

Worley, in a letter to Raffensperger, said the call was “probable cause” for a probe into possible election code violations, citing a section of the state code criminalizing soliciting election fraud from someone else.

On Monday, two House Democrats called on FBI Director Christopher Wray to open a criminal probe.

“As members of Congress and former prosecutors, we believe Donald Trump engaged in solicitation of, or conspiracy to commit, a number of election crimes,” Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) wrote in a letter Monday. “We ask you to open an immediate criminal investigation into the president.”

The letter specifically cites U.S. and Georgia law in arguing that Trump broke laws on election fraud and soliciting election fraud.

“The evidence of election fraud by Mr. Trump is now in broad daylight. The prima facie elements of the above crimes have been met,” Lieu and Rice wrote. “Given the more than ample factual predicate, we are making a criminal referral to you to open an investigation into Mr. Trump. Thank you for your attention to this urgent request.”

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, also called for a criminal probe and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called it an impeachable offense.

In the phone call, Trump asks Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” in the Peach State. The GOP election official, who has repeatedly debunked the president’s claims of widespread election fraud, refused the request and questioned the president’s sources of information.

– Updated 2:49 p.m.