Grand jury urged more indictments
ATLANTA — A special grand jury that investigated election interference allegations in Georgia last year recommended indicting more than twice as many Trump allies as prosecutors eventually sought to charge, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; former Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga.; and Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser.
In its final report, which a judge unsealed Friday, the panel also recommended charges against Boris Epshteyn, one of former President Donald Trump’s main lawyers, as well as a number of other Trumpaligned lawyers, including Cleta Mitchell and Lin Wood.
Trump and 18 allies were charged in a racketeering indictment that was handed up last month by a regular grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia. But the special grand jury, whose role was advisory, recommended bringing charges against an even wider web of Trump allies who tried to change the election results.
Officials with the Fulton County District Attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment Friday. But the report provides a window on the office’s exercise of prosecutorial discretion, with prosecutors seemingly concluding that some of the people named in the report had committed acts that would be too difficult to prove were criminal.
The special grand jury, which Fulton County prosecutors convened to help with the investigation, met at an Atlanta courthouse from June to December of last year. It spent much of that time hearing testimony from 75 witnesses on the question of whether Trump or any of his allies had sought to illegally overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.
Under Georgia law, the panel could not issue indictments itself. In the Trump case, that task fell to a regular grand jury that was seated over the summer. The regular grand jury heard evidence from prosecutors for one day in early August before voting to indict all 19 defendants whom prosecutors had sought to charge.
The special grand jury’s mandate was to write a report with recommendations on whether indictments were warranted in the investigation, which was led by Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney. Willis asked to convene a special grand jury because such panels have subpoena powers, and she was concerned some witnesses would not cooperate without being subpoenaed.
Portions of the report, which was written in December, were publicly released in February. But those excerpts did not indicate who had been recommended for indictment or on what charges. The release of the full nine-page report this week was ordered by Judge Robert McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court, who had been waiting to do so until charges were filed.
Epshteyn declined Friday to comment about the report. Flynn’s lawyer, Jesse Binnall, said in a statement that the report revealed “corruption by a politically motivated prosecutor,” though he provided no evidence. Others recommended for indictment did not immediately respond to requests for comment.