ATLANTA (CN) — The full findings of the special purpose grand jury's investigation that led to the indictment in Georgia of former President Donald Trump and several of his affiliates was released Friday, revealing that an additional 20 people were recommended for criminal charges.
The 23-person jury's report was finalized in January, but a majority of its content was kept under seal by a Fulton County Superior Court judge, as requested by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who led the investigation.
According to the 28-page document, the jurors recommended 39 people be indicted for alleged crimes, while only 19, including Trump, were ultimately charged with racketeering and other related crimes last month.
The newly released recommendations included one of Trump's close associates, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham; his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn; and two former Georgia Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
Graham was among the 75 witnesses summoned to testify before the special grand jury last year, after ultimately losing a challenge that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to fight his subpoena.
Prosecutors questioned Graham about phone calls the South Carolina Republican made to Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in the weeks following the 2020 election, and other election-related concerns. Graham's calls were made weeks before Trump's infamous January 2021 call, where the former president pressed Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in the state— a key incident to the formation of Willis' probe.
Thirteen grand jurors recommended Graham be charged as part of the “national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, focused on efforts in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia,” while seven voted against indicting and one abstained, according to the report.
Impaneled at Willis' request in May 2022, the group was presented evidence for nearly eight months, and each voted individually on who should be indicted, if any. Transcripts of witness testimony were not included in the final report and it remains unclear whether they will be made public.
The group was nearly unanimous in recommending that Trump and several of his campaign attorneys, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Ray Smith and Cleta Mitchell, be indicted.
With the exception of former Georgia GOP chairman David Shafer, the group was evenly divided on charging most of the Republican activists who served as Trump electors in Georgia, including Lt. Governor Burt Jones and state Senator Shawn Still.
While Still was among the 19 indicted last month, Willis was disqualified from pursuing charges against Jones last year due to conflict of interest concerns from the judge over a fundraiser she held for his opponent in the Georgia lieutenant governor's race.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney released minimal portions of the report in February but kept the indictment recommendations sealed, due to Willis' concerns about defendants' due process rights before indictments were obtained through a regular grand jury. In the report’s conclusion that was made public, the special grand jurors emphasized that their findings came directly from them and that the district attorney’s office “had nothing to do with the recommendations contained herein.” They noted that the jury did not include any “election law experts or criminal lawyers.”
The panel wrote that they unanimously agreed that “no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election,” contrary to claims reiterated by Trump and many of his allies.
The partial release also included a section where jurors expressed concerns that some witnesses may have committed perjury when testifying before the panel, but did not state any names.
Among the 41 counts in the sprawling racketeering indictment is a perjury charge against Atlanta-based lawyer Bob Cheeley, who “knowingly, willfully and unlawfully” made false statements before the special grand jury about the meeting of alternate Trump electors in the Georgia Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, according to the indictment.
The only person Willis indicted who was not on the grand jury’s list is Michael Roman, who worked for the Trump campaign as director of election day operations and allegedly helped organize the false Trump elector scheme in Georgia and other battleground states.
After the charges were announced last month, Judge McBurney ordered that the full final report be released at the urging of several news media outlets, and more recently, some of the defendants.
McBurney gave until 5 p.m. on Sept. 6. to anyone who believed that the report should not be made public to file an objection, but none appeared on the court docket.
While a regular Fulton County grand jury hears hundreds of felony cases over two months and votes on whether an indictment should be brought, a special grand jury has 16 to 23 members who focus on a single case for as long as the prosecutors need and can only make recommendations for charges.
Under Georgia law, the names of the regular grand jurors must be disclosed on the criminal indictment, which has led to a profusion of violent threats against those who handed up the August indictment, particularly in right-wing online forums. Willis has repeatedly said that she and her staff have received threatening phone calls and emails since she initiated the investigation into Trump and his allies over two years ago. Even Trump himself has attacked Willis, the first Black woman to hold her position, as being “racist.”
However, the unsealed report does not list any juror names because the law does not apply to special purpose grand juries, which are typically conducted under greater secrecy so as to not hamper the investigation.
Their names may never be made public, unless they choose to speak publicly, as did the jury’s foreperson Emily Kohrs did this past February. The 30-year-old Fulton County resident did not reveal who was facing potential indictments when she spoke to reporters about her experience, but her public comments prompted a failed effort by Trump’s legal counsel to abolish the jury’s findings and disqualify the prosecution team before any charges were even filed.
Follow @Megwiththenews
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
