ATLANTA — An Atlanta-area prosecutor investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his associates broke the law when they sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia is expected to begin presenting her case before a grand jury early next week.

Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who was subpoenaed as a potential witness, said Saturday on CNN that he will give closed-door testimony to a grand jury after he was subpoenaed to testify at the Fulton County Courthouse on Tuesday.

“I will certainly answer any questions put in front of me,” Duncan told CNN. “For me, this is a story that I think it’s important for Republicans to hear and Americans to hear. Let’s hear the truth and nothing but the truth about Donald Trump’s actions and the surrounding cast of characters around him.”

George Chidi, an independent journalist who was also subpoenaed, said on Twitter, now X, that he had also been given notice to appear before the grand jury Tuesday.

It marks the first official confirmation that Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis, a Democrat, is finally moving to seek charges more than two years after she first launched her investigation into the efforts Trump and allies undertook to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia.

A spokesman for Willis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The high-profile investigation is widely expected to result in multiple charges for several defendants – including Trump, who was indicted earlier this month in a separate federal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith alleging Trump schemed and conspired to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 election to remain in power.

Duncan, a Republican, is one of four known witnesses subpoenaed to appear in the Fulton County case – though a summons does not necessarily guarantee testimony.

Former Georgia state Sen. Jen Jordan and former state Rep. Bee Nguyen, both Democrats, have also publicly acknowledged receiving subpoenas in the case.

Duncan was a longtime Trump supporter, but he publicly broke with the then-president in the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 election, publicly criticizing Trump and his allies for the “mountains of misinformation” they voiced about Georgia’s election results. Duncan, who was head of the state Senate in late 2020, publicly clashed with several Republican state lawmakers and vocal allies of Trump who pushed efforts to overturn Biden’s win in state, and he criticized hearings where Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani pushed debunked claims of widespread election fraud.

Duncan, who did not seek reelection in 2022, fought a subpoena last year to appear before a special purpose grand jury impaneled to investigate the case but said last week he would willingly testify and “share the facts as I know them around this investigation.”

Jordan and Nguyen attended the legislative hearings where Giuliani and other Trump associates peddled baseless conspiracy theories about the Georgia vote – with Nguyen challenging many of those claims in real time. Both testified last year before the special grand jury.

Another subpoena went to Chidi, an Atlanta independent journalist, who stumbled upon a meeting in December 2020 at the Georgia Capitol of 16 Republicans who had gathered to cast fraudulent electoral college votes declaring Trump as the victor in Georgia, even though Biden had already been certified as the winner.

Chidi wrote in The Intercept that he was falsely told it was an “education meeting” and was kicked out – a detail that has drawn the attention of Willis and prosecutors investigating the so-called fake elector scheme.

Willis has strongly hinted for months that she will seek multiple indictments in the case, using Georgia’s expansive anti-racketeering statutes that allow prosecutors not only to charge in-state wrongdoing but to use activities in other states to prove criminal intent in Georgia. In court filings, Willis has described her probe as an investigation of “multistate, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere.”

At least 18 people were informed by prosecutors last year that they were targets of the investigation. That list includes Giuliani, the former New York mayor who acted as Trump’s personal attorney after the election, and several Georgia Republicans who served as alternate Trump electors – though some have since been granted immunity.

But Willis’ scope is suspected to be larger than that. Georgia law does not require individuals to be formally notified they are targets of an investigation.

In addition to the alternate electors, Fulton County prosecutors are believed to be examining the false statements made by Giuliani and other Trump allies during the Georgia legislative hearings; the harassment of election workers, including Fulton County poll workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss; and the breach of voting equipment in Coffee County, Georgia, as part of a Trump-led effort to undermine Georgia’s 2020 vote.

Willis previously indicated she would announce a charging decision during a three-week window in August, which ends Friday. Security has intensified in recent weeks around the courthouse, where the building is blocked by barriers and streets have been closed.

If charged in Georgia, it would be the fourth time since March that Trump has been criminally indicted.

In addition to federal charges filed earlier this month by Smith for Trump’s alleged efforts to subvert the election results, the former president was indicted in Miami last month on charges of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House and obstructing government efforts to get them back. A state grand jury in New York in March charged him with falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments during the 2016 campaign.

In anticipation of charges in Georgia, Trump has intensified his attacks on Willis, the first Black woman elected as district attorney in Fulton County.

Trump’s 2024 campaign has been airing a video that directly attacks her, Smith and other prosecutors. The campaign has reportedly reserved airtime to air the ad in Atlanta, according to Medium Buying. The spot claims Willis “got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting” – a baseless allegation Trump later escalated in an Aug. 8 campaign appearance in New Hampshire.

“They say there’s a young woman – a young racist in Atlanta – they say she was after a certain gang, and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member,” Trump said. “And this is a person who wants to indict me … for a perfect phone call.”

Willis has frequently declined to respond directly to Trump’s attacks, but in a rare exception, she said Wednesday in an email to her staff that Trump’s ad contained “derogatory and false information about me” and ordered her employees to ignore it.

“You may not comment in any way on the ad or any of the negativity that may be expressed against me, your colleagues, this office in coming days, weeks or months,” Willis wrote in the email, obtained by The Washington Post. “We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any. This is business, it will never be personal.”

Willis has repeatedly raised concerns about security as her investigation has progressed, citing Trump’s “alarming” rhetoric and the racist threats she and her staff have received – including a recent email Willis shared with county officials where the author referred to her as the n-word and called her a “Jim Crow Democrat whore.”

Willis is often accompanied by armed guards at public appearances, and security at her office and her residence was increased even more in recent days ahead of the expected charging announcement, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about sensitive security matters.

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