Key Georgia Witness Reacts To Trump Saying He 'Shouldn't' Testify

Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R) reacted on CNN to Donald Trump ’s social media rant  targeting him as a witness in the former president’s racketeering case in his state.

Trump’s Truth Social post on Monday said he’d heard Duncan was set to testify before a grand jury in Fulton County. “He shouldn’t,” Trump wrote, calling Duncan a “loser” who was “very unpopular with Republicans .”

The post came just hours before a Fulton County grand jury handed up an indictment late Monday following a long day of testimony. Trump was charged with more than a dozen felonies over his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss, including conspiring to commit forgery, filing false documents and racketeering.

Ahead of the indictment, Duncan was asked on CNN if he felt Trump was “trying to intimidate you as a witness.”

Duncan said he wouldn’t comment on that so close to his testimony, but pointed out that Trump misspelled his name. 

“I’m just going to answer the questions as presented to me much like I did in the special grand jury,” he said of his testimony.

“Whatever the questions are, to the best of my ability, I’m going to answer the questions and you know, this is an important part of the healing process for the Republican Party ,” he continued. “This is painful. This may feel ugly to some, but this is part of this process.”

“We’ve got to put these facts and figures and details and reality on display for America, specifically for Republicans, to see what reality really is,” he added.

He noted that Trump has been playing a “shallow” social media game for years now.

“But you don’t have to be any more than a few hundred characters worth of information, no facts behind it with no details, to serve the crowd,” Duncan said.

Watch the interview below.

Trump’s post alarmed legal experts , who pointed to witness tampering concerns.

Trump has repeatedly criticized witnesses, judges and prosecutors working on the four criminal cases in which he’s been charged. 

“Witness tampering in real time,” Barb McQuade, a Univerisity of Michigan law professor and MSNBC legal analyst, said of Trump’s post.

Andrew Weissman, a former federal prosecutor, told MSNBC “you can’t tell a witness not to comply with a grand jury subpoena unless there is some legal ability to do that,” noting that Trump’s behavior and risk of intimidating witnesses could have implications on whether he’s released on bail on the Georgia charges.

The judge overseeing Trump’s federal election conspiracy case, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, on Friday issued an order prohibiting Trump from revealing information he receives from prosecutors ahead of trial. She also warned that she would take seriously any statements Trump makes that could be construed as witness intimidation. 

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said the grand jury issued arrest warrants for Trump and his indicted allies, and she gave them until noon on Aug. 25 to surrender.