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Atlanta journalist George Chidi is sort of like the eyes and ears of Fulton County.
Chidi is a seasoned politics and crime reporter who’s extremely plugged in to the Georgia criminal justice scene. If you’re a frequent ReidOut Blog reader, his name may ring a bell: I’ve cited his reporting on the YSL racketeering case in Atlanta (involving rapper Young Thug) and, in particular, I’ve highlighted Chidi’s view that the trial could be seen as a test run for filing similar RICO charges against Donald Trump.
On Monday, Chidi announced via The Intercept that he had been subpoenaed — again — to testify before the Fulton County grand jury that is weighing whether to bring criminal charges against the former president and others over efforts to overturn Georgia’s results in the 2020 presidential election.
You may be thinking: “Why would this journalist be subpoenaed?”
Because on Dec. 14, 2020, Chidi apparently stumbled upon a meeting of Republican “fake electors” at Georgia’s state Capitol. These people have reportedly been central to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ election interference probe.
As Chidi described it Monday:
I went to Georgia’s state Capitol on December 14, 2020, to watch the solemn and usually forgettable ritual casting of electoral votes. As Stacey Abrams led the Democratic delegation upstairs, Republicans sat in a reserved room on the Capitol’s second floor to prepare a competing — and potentially illegal — slate of their own.
The Republicans threw me out of the room moments after I entered, camera phone in hand, going live on Facebook. When I asked what kind of gathering they were having, they told me it was an ‘education meeting.’ As it turns out, Donald Trump’s election team had sent an email the previous night, instructing the group to maintain ‘complete secrecy.’
This incident could be why Willis’ team has called on Chidi to speak to grand jurors again, as the country awaits the potential announcement of charges against Trump, his associates and some of his supporters in the Georgia Republican Party.
Chidi testified last summer before the special grand jury that weighed whether to recommend charges in the case. In an interview last September with WABE, the local NPR and PBS affiliate, he said he initially fought the subpoena on principle as a journalist, but “frankly given the stakes, I did not fight all that hard.”
Personally, as a fellow journalist who believes we do this work to enlighten the public and reduce harm, I agree with that calculation.
When I first read the story of Chidi waltzing into a seemingly nefarious meeting of fake electors, it sounded like “Classic Chidi” to me. Though I don’t know him personally, I’ve come to learn, through his work and from others, that he’s arguably the most dogged reporter covering Atlanta politics and criminal justice. So the idea of him entering a room of plotting right-wingers with his camera phone — like, “Hey guys, whatcha doin’?” — and happening upon a possible crime scene came as no surprise to me.
His requested testimony could certainly portend problems for people in that room. Stay tuned.