Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked a judge on Tuesday not to release a report by a special grand jury tasked with investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies broke laws when they sought to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.
Willis asked Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney not to make the special grand jury report publicly available. “In this case, the state understands the media’s inquiry and the world’s interest. But we have to be mindful of protecting future defendants’ rights,” Willis said.
GEORGIA JUDGE MAY RELEASE GRAND JURY REPORT ON TRUMP’S ATTEMPT TO OVERTURN 2020 ELECTION
However, prosecutors were not opposed to eventually releasing the report, with Willis clarifying that decisions about whether to make recommendations are “imminent.”
“We are asking that the report not be released because, you having seen that report, decisions are imminent,” Willis said. The special grand jury, whose work was overseen by McBurney, recommended the report to be made public along with a coalition of media organizations that say it should be.
At the close of the roughly 90-minute hearing, McBurney made clear that his decision on whether to release the report, or portions of it, would be made first through an order before the actual report will be made available.
“There will be no rash decisions,” McBurney said Tuesday, noting the extraordinary nature of the special grand jury’s investigation.
Earlier during the hearing, Thomas Clyde, an attorney for the media groups, asked for the special grand jury’s report to be released “now” and “in its entirety.”
“It is not unusual for the [district attorney] and for a prosecuting authority to release information during the progress of its case,” Clyde said, referring to Willis’s argument to keep the report sealed for now.
The hearing on Tuesday was scheduled to deliberate whether to release a report conducted by a 26-member panel over the span of eight months investigating many of Trump’s allies.
The report is expected to include recommendations for Willis on possible criminal prosecution, though it is not clear how specific those recommendations will be. The special grand jury did not have the power to issue indictments, making it up to Willis to decide whether to seek indictments for a general grand jury.
McBurney said that if the report or portions of it were to be made public, he would give notice at some point after the hearing on Tuesday.
McBurney later asked the state’s attorneys why the special grand jury report should be kept from the public while other investigations, such as the House Jan. 6 committee, conducted their work publicly.
“Congress was going to conduct this investigation because Congress can conduct investigations,” an attorney for the state said. “It was not conducting an investigation at the request of the director of the Department of Justice to provide recommendations, which would inform its ongoing investigation.”
In early 2021, Willis began her investigation after a recording of a phone call in January that year between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, began to circulate. Trump claimed to Raffensperger that he could find roughly 12,000 votes to overcome his loss in the election.
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.
Jurors heard testimony from 75 witnesses, including state officials such as Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) and Raffensperger, as well as Trump advisers including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Attorneys for the former president released a statement Monday saying they were never involved in the investigation.
“The grand jury compelled the testimony of dozens of other, often high-ranking, officials during the investigation, but never found it important to speak with the President,” attorneys for Trump said. “Therefore, 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.”
Trump made posts to his social media site Truth Social on Tuesday, defending the phone call with Raffensperger as a “perfect” call and repeating his claims that the Georgia election was stolen.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is already overseeing an investigation into Trump’s actions to change the outcome of the 2020 election and keeping classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
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Trump has and continues to face additional legal hurdles, including his Trump Organization business, which was convicted in New York court in December of tax fraud.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, is also suing Trump’s company and children, accusing them of lying to banks and insurers about the value of their assets. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has also opened a criminal investigation into Trump’s business.
