This just in to CNN.
Prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia,
have granted immunity
to at least eight fake electors
in their probe
of Donald Trump's efforts
to overturn the 2020
presidential election.
Let's get details from CNN's Sara Murray.
Sara, what can you tell us?
Well, Wolf,
we're learning this from a new court
filing that eight of the 16
Republican fake electors,
at least eight, have accepted
immunity deals
from District
Attorney Fani Willis
as part of her sprawling investigation
into efforts to overturn
the 2020 election
in the state of Georgia.
Now, this is significant
because they are
relatively recent cooperators
as of April,
according to these court
filings and earlier
in this investigation,
the district attorney had said
all 16 of these fake electors
were targeted as part of her probe.
She made it clear
she was investigating this fake
elector scheme
putting forward
these fake slate of electors
to try to block
the certification of the 2020
presidential election results.
So now she's got a handful
of new cooperators on her hands.
This is part of the reason
that we have been told,
you know,
we saw this delay or rather an extension.
And when she's actually
going to bring these charges
she recently informed law enforcement.
She was likely to make an announcement
on who,
if anyone,
she would charge
between July and September of this year.
Previously we had heard
it could be a little bit
earlier than that.
But look,
they're going to be getting information
from these cooperators.
They're going to be sifting over that
and trying to decide
who, if anyone, to bring charges
against in this case.
And the district attorney
had previously said
that some of these fake electors
were beginning
to turn on each other,
were beginning to incriminate each other.
An attorney who represents these eight
who have accepted immunity deals and says
they're not turning on each other
they're not offering
incriminating evidence,
but obviously
they have something
that the district attorney
wants enough to offer them
these immunity deals Wolf.
Good point. Sara Murray, stand by.
I also want to bring in our senior
legal analyst, Elie Honig. Elie.
What does it mean
practically for these fake electors
to now be granted immunity?
Right.
Well, so immunity is a powerful tool
that prosecutors can use
to get at testimony from people
who may have been involved in a crime.
There's really three steps.
First, the prosecutor issues a subpoena
or request testimony.
Then the recipient of that claims,
the Fifth Amendment
says, I'm not going to testify
because it might incriminate me.
And then the countermove by prosecutors
is to say,
okay,
we're not going to use your testimony
against you.
You're immunized,
and now you have to testify
because you no longer have a Fifth
Amendment right.
So, Sara,
how does this
fit into the broader investigation
in Georgia?
Well, look,
the fake
collector probe is one part of what
she's looking at.
And obviously,
she's going to want to know
from these folks, you know,
what interaction
they may have had with higher levels
of the Trump campaign.
About sort
of the organization of this plot.
But they're also looking at, you know,
false testimony
given in front of Republican lawmakers
or given in front of lawmakers
in the state of Georgia
by people like Rudy Giuliani.
They're looking at unauthorized access
to voting machines
or to election machines
in one rural county in Georgia.
And again,
of course,
they're looking at this phone call
that Donald Trump made
to Georgia, Secretary of State Brad
Raffensperger, as well as calls Trump
made to other Georgia officials
trying to pressure them
to overturn the election.
Ellie, does this tell you anything
about the prosecutors
strategy right now
and what type of charges
potentially the former President Trump
could potentially face?
Well, Wolf, it tells me that
prosecutors are trying
to climb the ladder here.
They're trying to use
the testimony
of these eight fake electors
to implicate the other fake electors.
But also,
I think you want to move up
the chain of command here.
The main question I would have
for these folks
that they now have to answer is
who came up with this idea
and who coordinated it?
And now as to potential charges
as Sara laid out,
there are charges under the Georgia code
for attempting to interfere
with an election.
But we've also had previous
reporting at CNN
that prosecutors are looking at
potential conspiracy charges,
which means one or more people,
two or more people
who come to an agreement
to commit a crime, or even,
according to our reporting,
racketeering charges,
which would mean
some organized group working together
to commit a series of crimes.
And that's
consistent with Sara's reporting
just now.
Ellie Honig,
Sara Murray, guys, thank you very much.