Excerpts of Ga. vote probe released
Special grand jury says it believes that some witnesses lied
ATLANTA — A special grand jury investigating efforts by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia says it believes “one or more witnesses” committed perjury and urged local prosecutors to bring charges.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should “seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,” according to portions of the special grand jury’s final report that were released Thursday.
Those sections are silent on key details, including who the panel believes committed perjury and what other specific charges should be pursued. But it marks the first time the grand jurors’ recommendations for criminal charges tied to the case have been made public. And it’s a reminder of the intensifying legal challenges facing the former president as he ramps up his third White House bid amid multiple legal investigations.
Trump is also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for holding classified documents at his Florida estate.
The former president never testified before the special grand jury, meaning he is not among those who could have perjured themselves. But the report doesn’t foreclose the possibility of other charges, and the case still poses particular challenges for Trump, in part because his actions in Georgia were so public.
Trump and his allies made unproven claims of widespread voter fraud and berated Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp for not acting to overturn his narrow loss to President Joe Biden in the state.
Willis has said since the beginning of the investigation two years ago that she was interested in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump suggested to Raffensperger that he could “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in the state.
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call. “Because we won the state.”
Trump has said repeatedly that his call with Raffensperger was “perfect,” and he told Associated Press last month that he felt “very confident” that he would not be indicted. In a statement Thursday, he continued to assert he did “absolutely nothing wrong.”
Trump, in his statement, correctly noted that the published excerpts “do not even mention President Trump’s name.”
In fact, he claimed on his social media platform, Truth Social, that the release had give him “Total exoneration,” though it did no such thing and portions having to do with recommended charges are still secret.
State and federal officials, including Trump’s attorney general, have consistently said the election was secure and there was no evidence of significant fraud.
The jury also noted that it reached a unanimous conclusion that “no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election.” That conclusion, they wrote, came after they heard “extensive testimony on the subject of alleged election fraud” from poll workers, investigators, technical experts, state officials and even “persons still claiming that such fraud took place.”
A Trump spokesperson, Liz Harrington, expressed amusement over the report’s finding that there was no widespread election fraud in Georgia.
“LOL,” she wrote on Twitter, posting accusations of fraud in the state that have been debunked.
The grand jury, which Willis requested to aid her investigation, was seated in May and submitted its report to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney on Dec. 15. The panel does not have the power to issue indictments. Instead, its report contains recommendations for Willis, who will ultimately decide whether to seek one or more indictments from a regular grand jury.
Over the course of about seven months, the special grand jurors heard from 75 witnesses, among them
Trump allies including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Top Georgia officials, such as Raffensperger and Kemp, also appeared before the panel.
Graham told reporters Thursday that he has not been contacted by authorities regarding his testimony. “I’m confident I testified openly and honestly,” he said.
The partial release of the grand jury’s report was ordered Monday by McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury. During a hearing last month, prosecutors urged him not to release the report until they decide on charges, while a coalition of media organizations, including the AP, pushed for the entire report to be made public immediately.
McBurney wrote in his Monday order that it’s not appropriate to release the full report now because it’s important to protect the due process rights of people for whom the grand jury recommended charges.
The excerpts indicate the full report is only nine pages, although it has at least one appendix as well. By contrast, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol produced an 845-page report. The Atlanta report was written by local grand jurors, who noted that their group did not include “election law experts or criminal lawyers.” They used their “collective best efforts,” they wrote, to “attend every session, listen to every witness and attempt to understand the facts as presented and the laws as explained.”