Georgia prosecutors asked a judge on Wednesday to revoke the bond of one of Donald J. Trump’s co-defendants in the election interference case there amid accusations that he had been intimidating witnesses.
The defendant, Harrison Floyd, who once led a group called Black Voices for Trump, faces charges related to a scheme to pressure a Fulton County, Ga., election worker to falsely say that she had taken part in election fraud. He was the
only one of the 19 defendants
originally charged in the case who had been jailed, because he did not make arrangements ahead of time to secure a bond agreement.
Since the beginning of the month,
prosecutors wrote in their motion,
Mr. Floyd has been directing hostile social media posts to the accounts of likely witnesses in the case, including the election worker, Ruby Freeman, and the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, “in an effort to intimidate co-defendants and witnesses.”
“@GaSecofState needs to call his lawyer,”
Mr. Floyd posted on X,
formerly known as Twitter, on Nov. 8. “He’s about to go through some things!”
“Does this sound like Ruby Freeman is being PRESSURED?” he
posted six days later,
with an audio clip of Ms. Freeman caught on a police body camera.
Calling these actions “intentional and flagrant violations of the conditions of release,” the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, asked the presiding judge in the case, Scott McAfee, to revoke Mr. Floyd’s bond, which could send him back to jail.
Mr. Floyd, who also goes by Willie Lewis Floyd III, is a former mixed-martial-arts fighter and a self-described “polo addict” who is charged in the indictment with racketeering, influencing a witness and conspiracy to commit false statements and writings. His lawyer could not immediately be reached on Wednesday evening.
Ms. Freeman and her daughter were part of a team processing votes in Fulton County on election night in November 2020. Soon after, video images of the two women handling ballots were posted online, leading Trump supporters to falsely claim that the women were engaged in fraud.
Wednesday’s development comes as Mr. Trump is enmeshed in battles over gag orders in his other civil and criminal cases. On Tuesday, federal prosecutors
asked an appeals court
in Washington to approve a gag order imposed on Mr. Trump in his federal election interference case, saying that his “long history” of targeting his adversaries on social media often led to dangers in the real world.
The gag order was suspended this month by the appeals court as it considered whether the trial judge in the case, Tanya S. Chutkan, was justified in imposing it in the first place.
Last month, the judge presiding over Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York
fined him $10,000
for breaking a gag order in that case after the former president made comments to reporters that the judge found were an attack on a court employee.
Mr. Trump has publicly assailed Ms. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, and attacked many aspects of the Georgia case, often in inflammatory language, but has done nothing that has led the district attorney to seek to have his bond revoked.
Ms. Willis’s motion came on a busy day for the state’s election case. In a hearing earlier in the day, Jonathan R. Miller III, a lawyer for another defendant, Misty Hampton, admitted to releasing
video interviews recorded by the district attorney’s office
with defendants who had pleaded guilty.
“This is a very, very public trial,” Mr. Miller explained, adding that “the public has a right to know” about what was in the statements. The videos were turned over to defense lawyers as part of the discovery process, and Ms. Willis’s office subsequently sought an emergency protective order to prevent further leaks.
Judge McAfee appeared dubious about allowing unfettered public access to such material but has not yet ruled on the matter.
Four of the original defendants in the Georgia case have already pleaded guilty as part of cooperation deals. Mr. Floyd’s social media posts included attacks against some of them,
including Jenna Ellis,
a Trump campaign lawyer.
The timing of a trial for the other defendants is not clear, since a trial date has not been set. But there is growing speculation that Ms. Willis will seek a summer start. On Tuesday,
she said that a trial
would very likely “not conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025.”