The front of the Fulton County Courthouse, the site of criminal proceedings against former President Donald Trump for election interference. The special grand jury’s report that investigated those claims released Friday.
A major breakthrough has occurred in the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s alleged interference in the 2020 election at the Fulton County Courthouse. The special grand jury, after an eight-month-long inquiry, has recommended criminal charges for nearly 40 individuals involved in attempts to overturn the election results. The unsealed 9-page report, finally made public by a judge on Friday, reveals that the grand jury has urged Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to seek indictments against Donald Trump himself for his infamous call with Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021. During that call, Trump pressured Raffensperger to overturn his already-certified defeat.
Although the special grand jury, responsible for conducting interviews with over 75 witnesses, did not possess the authority to issue indictments, they did find that 39 people allegedly violated more than a dozen state laws. These violations included making false statements and writings, solicitation of election fraud, and violation of Georgia’s anti-racketeering law. Interestingly, despite this strong recommendation, some well-known Republicans named in the grand jury’s report were not charged in the 98-page indictment handed up in Fulton County last month. These Republicans, such as former Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, current Senator Lindsey Graham, attorneys Lin Wood and Cleta Mitchell, were prominent figures in the extensive, months-long effort to overturn Trump’s narrow loss in Georgia. Perdue and Loeffler, for example, called for Raffensperger’s resignation and made false claims about the state’s election results before losing in the January 2021 runoffs. It is worth noting that Graham had also contacted Raffensperger after the election to discuss the potential rejection of certain absentee ballots.
Although the grand jury’s report does not explicitly mention charges for these high-profile individuals, it does include Sen. Graham, and former Senators Perdue and Loeffler among the 23 people the special grand jury recommends for indictment “with respect to the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” Nevertheless, the final decision on who to charge and with what crimes lies with the district attorney’s office and a regularly empaneled grand jury. It is important to understand that the inclusion of individuals like Perdue, Loeffler, and Graham in the report does not imply cooperation with prosecutors or indicate the likelihood of future charges.
In a footnote, the report clarifies that “one of the dissenting jurors voting against recommending seeking indictments of former Senators Perdue and Loeffler on a racketeering claim believes that their statements following the November 2020 election, while pandering to their political base, do not constitute a criminal conspiracy.”
The condensed report largely aligns with the charges and individuals mentioned in District Attorney Willis’ racketeering indictment in August. Notable figures such as Donald Trump, his former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and former Georgia Republican Party Chair David Shafer are highlighted as central figures in both the report and the indictment.
In addition to the Trump-Raffensperger call, the special grand jury recommends charges related to persistent and repeated communications aimed at influencing multiple Georgia officials and employees. It also investigates efforts to harass and coerce a Fulton County poll worker into falsifying an admission of election fraud, a scheme involving 16 Republicans falsely claiming to be Georgia’s official electors, unlawful access of election equipment in rural Coffee County, and a series of legislative hearings where false claims were made about the state’s election results and the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia and other battleground states.
In February, Judge Robert McBurney released a limited version of the report, only allowing the public release of the introduction, conclusion, and a section detailing concerns about witnesses lying under oath. McBurney justified this limited release by stating that these sections did not violate the due process rights of anyone who may be charged at a later stage.
The report begins with a timeline of the special grand jury’s activities, from the initial request made by the District Attorney to the 75 witnesses who appeared before the closed-door proceedings. It also emphasizes that the grand jury unanimously concluded that “no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election.”
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