Remove lawyer in Trump case, DA asks
Some of Georgia’s alternate electors not told of immunity deals, filing says
ATLANTA — An Atlanta-area district attorney investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies broke the law when they sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia asked a judge to disqualify an attorney representing some of the Republican alternate electors who signed certificates falsely stating Trump had won the election in Georgia, claiming the attorney did not tell her clients they had been offered immunity deals in the case.
In a court motion filed Tuesday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, D, asked for attorney Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow, who represents 10 of the alternate Republican electors, to be removed from “any further participation” in the case. Prosecutors claim Debrow committed an ethical breach by representing so many clients simultaneously — including electors who have “made adverse claims” against other electors that Debrow represents, which prosecutors say is clear conflict of interest.
The filing cites interviews Fulton County prosecutors conducted on April 12 and April 14 with some of the electors represented by Debrow, which Debrow attended.
“During these interviews, some of the electors stated that another elector represented by Ms. Debrow committed acts that are violations of Georgia law and that they were not party to these additional acts,” the filing states. “Additionally, in these interviews, some of the electors represented by Ms. Debrow told members of the investigation team that no potential offer of immunity was ever brought to them in 2022.”
Prosecutors say those claims are in “direct conflict” with statements made in court last year by attorney Holly Pierson, who previously served as Debrow’s co-counsel in the case. Pierson told a judge they had informed their clients about offers of immunity made by Willis’s office as prosecutors sought their testimony before a special purpose grand jury impaneled to investigate alleged 2020 election interference.
Debrow did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pierson — who now represents just one of the electors, Georgia Republican Party chair David Shafer — said the prosecution allegations are “entirely false” and that the court “already has documents in its possession … that prove the DA’s allegations false.”
“Sadly, the DA’s office continues to seem more interested in media attention, trampling on the constitutional rights of innocent citizens, and recklessly defaming its perceived opponents than in the facts, the law, or the truth,” Pierson said in an email.
The motion comes as Willis has signaled she is close to making public her decision on whether she will file charges in the high stakes investigation, which has ensnared not only Trump and some of his closest aides and allies but a litany of prominent Republicans including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and several top Georgia officials, including Gov. Brian Kemp.
Willis, a longtime Fulton County prosecutor who was elected district attorney in 2020, launched her investigation into alleged election interference just days after a recording was made public of a January 2021 phone call that Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to “find” enough votes to overturn Trump’s defeat in Georgia.
It was one of several calls Trump and his associates made to Georgia officials prodding them to undertake efforts to change the results of the state’s presidential election.
But Willis has indicated publicly and in court filings that her office’s investigation has expanded to include several other lines of inquiry, including false claims of election fraud that Giuliani and other Trump associates made to Georgia state lawmakers; threats and harassment targeting Georgia election workers; and the alternate Republican electors.
At least 18 people have been notified they are targets of the election interference investigation, according to court documents and statements from their attorneys. That list includes Giuliani and the slate of 16 alternate Republican electors.