A finalized report from the Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury tasked to investigate former President Donald Trump‘s efforts to overturn his defeat in the state’s 2020 election could soon be released, depending on the outcome of a Tuesday hearing.
Just two weeks after completing the grand jury’s work and folding the 26-member panel, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney scheduled a hearing for Tuesday to determine whether to make the panel’s final report available publicly.
The grand jury met for nearly eight months inside the Fulton County Courthouse, looking into evidence in an extensive criminal investigation to find whether Trump and his allies broke the law when they sought to overturn Trump’s election loss in Georgia.
FULTON COUNTY JURY FINISHES FINAL REPORT OVER ALLEGED CRIMINAL EFFORTS IN 2020 ELECTION
On Tuesday, attorneys who have been notified they are targets of the investigation will likely ask the judge to keep the report concealed. Meanwhile, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to pursue charges and could ask for portions of the report, if not all of it, to be unsealed in the forthcoming weeks.
But the group involved in Tuesday’s hearing will not involve attorneys for Trump because the grand jury never subpoenaed the former president nor asked him to appear voluntarily during the monthslong investigation. In a statement, his lawyers made no mention of a plan to fight the release of the report.
“We can assume that the grand jury did their job and looked at the facts and the law, as we have, and concluded there were no violations of the law by President Trump,” attorneys Drew Findling, Marissa Goldberg, and Jennifer Little said.
The grand jury, which doesn’t have the power to issue indictments, has also recommended that the report be made public. Willis will ultimately determine whether to offer evidence to a grand jury for criminal indictments.
Willis asked for the grand jury last year due to its ability to issue subpoenas for witnesses’ testimony. The panel heard several testimonies from figures in Trump’s close network, including attorney Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Georgia officials such as Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was pressured by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results.
In early 2021, Willis began her investigation after a recording of a phone call in January that year between Trump and Raffensperger began to circulate. Trump claimed to Raffensperger that he could find roughly 12,000 votes to overcome his loss in the election.
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Additionally, the grand jury was tasked to investigate a coordinated effort to send “alternate” slates of Republican presidential electors to states won by then-candidate Joe Biden. In court filings, attorneys for the “fake electors” have said their clients were acting to preserve Trump’s rights amid a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Peach State’s election results, which had already been certified by Nov. 19, 2020.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and accused Willis of pursuing him for political purposes. Meanwhile, Trump has continued to claim that the 2020 general election was stolen.
