Atlanta journalist George Chidi announced Saturday he was asked by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office to testify before a grand jury this Tuesday in the 2020 election interference case against former President Donald Trump.
“I’ve just received a call from District Attorney Fani Willis’ office. I have been asked to come to court Tuesday for testimony before the grand jury,” Chidi (pictured above) wrote on social media.
I've just received a call from District Attoney Fani Willis' office. I have been asked to come to court Tuesday for testimony before the grand jury.
— George Chidi (@neonflag) August 12, 2023
Chidi’s announcement comes nearly two weeks after he initially announced that an investigator with Willis’ office handed him two subpoenas to testify in front of a grand jury while was at a parking lot in downtown Atlanta
Chidi was asked to testify in front of the grand jury to describe his experience when he allegedly walked into a “secret” meeting of Republican “fake electors” at Georgia’s state Capitol on December 14, 2020.
— George Chidi (@neonflag) July 31, 2023
“I went to Georgia’s state Capitol on December 14, 2020, to watch the solemn and usually forgettable ritual casting of electoral votes. As Stacey Abrams led the Democratic delegation upstairs, Republicans sat in a reserved room on the Capitol’s second floor to prepare a competing — and potentially illegal — slate of their own,” Chidi wrote in an article published by The Intercept last month. “The Republicans threw me out of the room moments after I entered, camera phone in hand, going live on Facebook. When I asked what kind of gathering they were having, they told me it was an ‘education meeting.’”
Chidi went on to express frustration for being subpoenaed in the case, writing, “Journalists should not be testifying in front of grand juries. We are not agents of the government, gathering intelligence to be used in prosecutions. Our role should be adversarial, and my role as a journalist in Atlanta has regularly been just that with regard to Fulton County government, law enforcement, and even the operation of its courts.”
Despite his frustration, Chidi further stated that while he is reviewing his legal options with retained counsel, he still expects to testify.
District Attorney Willis’ investigation into Trump began in February 2021 into alleged efforts by Trump and his allies to “overturn” the results of the 2020 election.
Joe Biden was certified as the victor of Georgia and was awarded the state’s 16 Electoral College votes by a margin of 11,599 votes – less than 0.25 percent of the 5 million votes cast in the 2020 presidential election.
During the election, several Georgia counties failed to properly track thousands of absentee ballots turned into voting drop boxes across the state.
In October of 2021, eleven months after the November 3, 2020 election, a review of transfer forms provided to The Georgia Star News from Fulton County officials in response to an open records request at the time revealed that the Secretary of State’s office in Georgia was missing chain of custody documents for 6,995 absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes there.
Across the state, an estimated 316,000 ballots were counted without chain of custody documentation, The Star News reported.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Georgia Star News and The Star News Network.
Photos “George Chidi” and “Summons” by George Chidi.
