Washington.— The Fulton County District Attorney’s investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s effort to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election is nearing a turning point, posing new challenges for federal prosecutors considering indictments in connection with the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The lengthy investigation by Fani T. Willis in Atlanta overlaps substantially with a broad investigation into Trump’s conduct by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington.
Both rely on similar documentary evidence, some of the same criminal targets, and a small group of shared witnesses who have knowledge of the former president’s actions and attempts.
Trump’s critics see these concurrent investigations as ensuring that the former president and those who engineered the scheme to install fake voters in hotly contested states, including Rudolph W. Giuliani and John C. Eastman, will be held accountable.
But they are also creating complications for the two aggressive investigative teams trying to obtain the same witnesses, raising the possibility of discrepancies in testimony that Trump’s lawyers could take advantage of.
Willis and his team began their work in February 2021, and are expected to settle charges as early as next month.
That puts pressure on Smith, who has vowed to work fast and move faster, according to current and former prosecutors.
The inquiries are not the same. Smith will try to branch out into other areas, most notably whether Trump misused classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago property after he finished his term.
A fourth possible charge, obstructing an official process before Congress, has been used in many cases against participants in the attack on the Capitol.