The Daily Fuckup

By Sept. 16, 2021, Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election result were already inside a criminal investigation. The timeline matters: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened the probe in February 2021, weeks after the Jan. 2 call in which Trump pressed Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to help him reverse his loss.

That call was the clearest public record of the pressure campaign. Trump did not ask for another audit in the abstract. He told Raffensperger to help him “find” enough votes to change the result, a demand captured on audio and released publicly in early January. By the time Willis moved in February, the facts at issue were already fixed in the record.

Fulton County’s first step was to preserve evidence. Willis sent letters to Georgia officials asking them to keep records related to the 2020 election and possible attempts to influence its administration. In those letters, her office said it was examining potential violations that could include solicitation of election fraud, false statements, conspiracy, racketeering, and oath-of-office offenses. That is not the same as a charge, but it is more than political noise.

By March 17, 2021, the district attorney’s office said it had hired an evidence specialist, another sign the case was moving forward inside a busy public-corruption shop. The office’s anti-corruption unit handled the broader bucket of matters that included election-related allegations. None of that changed the basic chronology. The conduct at issue became a legal matter in February 2021 and remained under scrutiny through Sept. 16, 2021.