Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney investigating former President Donald Trump, and the local sheriff have received “dozens” of threats in recent months, the sheriff said Tuesday.
(Bloomberg) — Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney investigating former President Donald Trump, and the local sheriff have received “dozens” of threats in recent months, the sheriff said Tuesday.
Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat discussed the threats at a news conference where he proclaimed his department is ready for any protestors if Trump is indicted for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
“The threats have been many,” Labat said. “They started via email, via text messages, via personal phone calls.”
Asked how he felt about those threats, he said: “As my momma said, you asked for this job.”
Willis, the Fulton County DA, has signaled that an indictment could come this month. The former president has been indicted on state charges in New York and federal charges in Miami. Labat said his officers studied the security plans in those two cities.
“We will certainly follow our plan, which we are keeping close to the vest,” he said. “We look forward to an opportunity to show the world that we are ready.”
Courthouse officials have met regularly with federal officials and other sheriff’s departments to plan how to secure the perimeter of the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta, Labat said.
“We’ve created a force multiplier that we’ve never seen before,” Labat said.
That planning included orange barricades that went up several days ago and have gotten “more focus than anything else in the history of the sheriff’s office.”
Labat also said that if he’s indicted, Trump would be photographed for a mug shot, unless he’s told otherwise.
“We’ll follow our normal practices,” the sheriff said.
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