ATLANTA (CN) —A lawyer for a former elections director in Georgia who along with former President Donald Trump faces charges in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, said Wednesday that he was responsible for leaking prosecutor's confidential interviews with defendants to the media.
The leaked recordings feature proffer sessions with the four defendants who took plea deals — Trump attorneys Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro and Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall. Their statements, made under the terms of their plea deals, were intended to aid prosecutors determine what information they have that could be used against the other defendants in the case.
Jonathan Miller, an attorney for defendant Misty Hampton, said he released the videos to the media because he thought they helped his client and the public had the right to see them. While he didn't say which news outlet he released them to, ABC News reported on them Monday, followed by The Washington Post.
Hampton faces seven charges over her role in furthering the election fraud conspiracy according to the sweeping racketeering indictment handed down in August. She was the elections supervisor of Coffee County, Georgia, during the 2020 election and is captured on video during the coordinated data breach of voting equipment along with Powell and Hall.
Her lawyer's admission was made during an emergency hearing held by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee on Wednesday, a day after prosecutors filed a motion for an emergency protective order on discovery materials in the case.
Miller defended his actions and said that by hiding "those proffers that show all the underlying things that went into those pleas, it misleads the public about what’s going on.”
Tom Clyde, an attorney representing a coalition of news outlets, agreed and argued against issuing a protective order. Clyde argued that the released videos did not impose any "physical or economic threat to witnesses."
Judge McAfee did not seem persuaded by their arguments that the public has a right to pretrial evidence, but said that he would consider their arguments and issue a more limited protective order to prevent the release of any "sensitive" materials. He noted the court's need to keep the jury pool "as untainted as possible."
Lawyers for former Georgia Republican Party chair David Shafer proposed a modified protective order that says prosecutors should have to identify “sensitive materials” that they don’t want released and that the defendants should have an opportunity to contest that designation.
They also pushed back on the prosecution's proposition that it will no longer produce copies of confidential video recordings of proffers and that defendants must come to the District Attorney’s Office to view them. They argued many of them live far away and that it would be inconvenient for their clients.
Prosecutors agreed they would continue to send out proffer videos to defendants if a modified protective order is imposed. In their emergency motion, prosecutors implied that counsel representing Harrison Floyd may have been behind the released videos, citing an email they sent to the court and state which stated, "It was Harrison Floyd's team." However, they added that the sender then followed up with a subsequent email that said the prior was a "typo," and that the team did not communicate with the media.
But soon after Wednesday's hearing, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Floyd has engaged in a "pattern of intimidation" towards co-defendants and witnesses.
In a motion to revoke his bond agreement, Willis said Floyd “engaged in numerous intentional and flagrant violations” of his bond agreement. She pointed to recent comments Floyd made on conservative podcasts and social media posts about Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, former Atlanta poll worker Ruby Freeman and others.
The charges against Floyd, a former Illinois congressional candidate and former director of Black Voices for Trump, stem from influencing witnesses, specifically trying to intimidate Freeman into a false admission of committing election fraud.
The terms of Floyd’s $100,000 bond agreement bar him from intimidating or communicating directly or indirectly with any co-defendants or witnesses in the case.
Floyd is the only defendant in the case to spend time behind bars in the Fulton County jail, because he had not yet hired an attorney to arrange a bond on his behalf at the time of his surrender to the charges. He accused Willis of wanting him to "rot" in jail after spending five days there, and was able to gain sympathy from a conservative crowdfunding campaign that raised over $341,000 for his legal defense.
It is not yet clear whether the judge will schedule a hearing on the matter, but if approved, Floyd will be returned to jail as he awaits trial.
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