Legal pressure against Donald Trump is intensifying in Georgia, where investigations into his efforts to overturn the election could result in prosecution -- and his ongoing "vengeance" campaign threatens the state's Republican Party.
A Georgia prosecutor is probing his pressure campaign against secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to "just find" him enough votes to undo Joe Biden's election win, and those findings are being shared with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection -- and the Justice Department is also investing Trump's link to threats from his supporters against election officials nationwide, reported The Guardian.
"Trump engaged in a pattern of repeated personal communications aimed at altering the vote count and making himself the winner in Georgia," said Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general in the first Bush administration who co-authored a Brookings Institute report on Trump's efforts in Georgia.
Ayers and his co-authors concluded that Trump faced "substantial risk" of prosecution in Georgia for multiple crimes.
"He did so in the absence of any even arguable evidence of voting or counting irregularities," Ayers said. "Unless there are other presently unknown facts that would explain it, this conduct appears to satisfy the requirements of a number of Georgia criminal statutes."
The FBI is also investigating threats made by Trump supporters against election officials who the former president singled out by name at rallies and on social media.
"I hope the FBI makes some arrests," said Richard Barron, who heads the Fulton County board of elections. "People need to be held accountable for making threats against public officials."
Those threats increased after Trump singled him out, and some Republicans believe the ex-president's ongoing efforts to punish and replace GOP officials who declined to go along with his election lies will end up hurting Georgia's party.
"I think the Trump presence in Georgia has not been good for the GOP's politics the last two years," said Republican lobbyist Ed Rogers. "Politics is about addition, and vengeance is not consistent with addition."