The District Attorney’s office in Fulton County Georgia said Wednesday former President Trump’s federal indictment would not affect the timing of its own investigation.
“The federal indictments will not have any impact on the Fulton County election investigation,” the office of D.A. Fani Willis said in a statement Wednesday.
The announcement comes after New York State Attorney General Letitia James said in an interview on Monday that her state’s cases against Trump—as well as in Georgia—”will unfortunately have to be adjourned pending the outcome of the federal case.”
Trump was arraigned at the federal courthouse in Miami on Tuesday following a federal grand jury’s indictment of the former President last week on 37 criminal counts related to his retaining classified documents, including conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Willis is investigating whether Trump and any of his backers illegally meddled in Georgia’s 2020 Presidential election.
She has indicated that she may potentially charge the former President in August related to her investigation. In a letter last month to the chief judge of the courthouse, Willis said she plans to have 70% of her staff working remotely between July 31 and August 18, adding that those who will remain in the courthouse then will include leadership staff and “all armed investigators.”
Pete Skandalakis, director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, said when the federal indicment was announced he had asked his staff to research the situation.
“They know of no law that gives the federal government the ability to go first,” Skandalakis said. “They would both go forward.”
He told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that one exception would be if the federal government had a defendant in custody and it refused to release that person for a separate prosecution. However, that does not apply to Trump because he was released Tuesday on a personal recognizance bond.
Skandalakis further noted that another exception would be if an agreement were reached between federal and state prosecutors to allow one case to go forward and the other to wait. But that apparently has not happened in Trump’s situation, either.
In New York State court, Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and conspiracy related to his role in hush money payments during the 2016 campaign season.
Separate from Bragg’s investigation James is suing Trump, his companies and its officers including three of Trump’s adult children, over allegations of bank, tax and insurance fraud.
Trump has insisted he has done nothing wrong and pleaded “not guilty” to all criminal charges in both his state and federal arraignments.
