Will Trump's indictment in New York impact Georgia's 2020 election probe?

ATLANTA - There are questions about what, if any, impact former President Donald Trump’s indictment in New York will have on the special grand jury probe in Fulton County. Legal experts say the two cases are very different and prosecutors are looking at violations under each separate state law.

"Not a huge surprise that this is the outcome," Emory University Law School Professor Kay Levine said. 

Levine said indictments are common when a grand jury, like the one in New York, is called.

"First of all, it’s secret. You can also really think of it as the prosecutors show...the person who is under suspicion is not allowed in the room. There is no defense attorney allowed in the room the prosecutor calls the witnesses that he or she wants them to hear from, and the prosecutor is the one who instructs the grand jury on the state of the law," Levine explained. 

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In the New York case, a majority of the 23 grand jurors had to vote to indict the former president.

For the case in Georgia, involving claims that Trump and his allies criminally interfered with the state’s 2020 election results, a special grand jury was impaneled in May 2022. It was different from the indictment grand jury held in New York, which is focused on determining if there was probable cause.

"Probable cause means, people define it differently, but basically, is there a fair probability that a person who is subject to these laws has violated them...that a law has been violated, and this is a person responsible," Levine said.

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"A special grand jury or an investigative grand jury is calling for evidence by itself...the investigative grand jury is trying to figure out is there something worth investigating here that suggests that a crime had occurred," she added.

Portions of the Fulton County special grand jury’s report, released in February, showed jurors found no widespread fraud in Georgia’s 2020 elections. They did write in that report some of the witnesses may have committed perjury.

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And while legally the cases are separate, Levine says there could be impacts on the Georgia case.

"There may be a firestorm of backlash and certainly agitation among people who are supporters...and that kind of firestorm and backlash can make the job of the investigative grand jury here harder certainly may cause some people to worry about intimidation and cause us as citizens of Georgia to worry about them not being able to do their job in a fair and impartial way because they’re worried about getting swept up in the backlash."

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Levine says the next steps in the New York case would be a voluntary surrender or arrest, followed by an arraignment, where charges would be read and bail would be discussed. She also said for the charges in New York, expect falsifying business records in commission of another crime and violation of campaign finance law to be among them. The maximum sentence is four years behind bars.