A Georgia judge on Thursday released segments of an Atlanta-area special grand jury report detailing its findings in an investigation into former President Donald Trump and his allies. The probe’s objective was to look into Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election in the Peach State. The report was scant on details, but in one section, jurors expressed concerns over perjury on the part of some of the witnesses.
The Washington Post reported:
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney on Monday ordered the release of the report’s introduction and conclusion as well as a section where the grand jury expressed concern that “some witnesses may have lied under oath during their testimony.”
In ordering the report’s partial release, McBurney said grand jurors did not identify any of those witnesses, allowing for that section of the report to be released publicly. The rest of the panel’s findings will remain sealed — including what McBurney described as “a roster of who should (or should not) be indicted, and for what, in relation to the conduct (and aftermath) of the 2020 general election in Georgia.”
The grand jury suggested that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis “seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling.”
The judge explained that releasing the full report would violate the due process of “potential future defendants” because the evidence provided to the grand jury was a “one-sided exploration” of what is alleged to have occurred in 2020. He stressed that there were no attorneys “advocating for the targets of the investigation” and that those who gave testimony were not allowed to “present evidence” to “rebut” other testimony.
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“The consequence of these due process deficiencies is not that the special purpose grand jury’s final report is forever suppressed or that its recommendations for or against indictment are in any way flawed or suspect,” Judge McBurney wrote. “Rather, the consequence is that those recommendations are for the district attorney’s eyes only — for now. Fundamental fairness requires this.”
The rest of the report – including recommendations for indictments – will remain sealed for the time being. McBurney indicated that more details will be released if the district attorney decides to charge anyone related to the investigation.
Some of those who might become targets for prosecution are Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the state’s Republican Party chief David Shafer, and of course, Trump himself.
The grand jury investigation kicked off after a recording of a phone call between the former president and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump asked him to “find” the 12,000 votes he needed to overturn the results of the election in the Peach State.
This development is the latest in a series of investigations into the former president. “In recent weeks, a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland issued subpoenas to election officials in states including Georgia, as well as Trump campaign associates, as part of a Justice Department inquiry into the efforts Trump and his allies undertook to reverse his 2020 defeat,” the Washington Post noted.
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