The 2020 Presidential Election Interference Case: Sensitivity of the Fulton County Circuit Attorney to the Out-of-State Witnesses
In May a special grand jury was empaneled in Fulton County to look into whether Mr. Trump and his associates broke Georgia law in their bid to win the 2020 election.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is leading the investigation into 2020 election interference, filed additional court petitions on Friday seeking to secure testimony from the out-of-state witnesses in front of the special grand jury meeting in Atlanta.
CNN reported that three weeks after the election, Flynn and Powell came up with extraordinary ideas about how to overturn the result.
CNN reported last month that the House select committee was requesting Gingrich’s cooperation to find out why he promoted false claims about the 2020 presidential election.
Willis also filed court paperwork on Friday to attempt to issue subpoenas to former Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann and at least two other individuals who she says have valuable insight to share with the grand jury.
CNN previously reported that the district attorney aims to quickly wrap up the grand jury’s work after the midterm elections and could begin issuing indictments as early as December, according to sources familiar with the situation.
Mr. Graham was originally ordered to appear before the grand jury in late August. More recently, he received a subpoena ordering him to give testimony on Nov. 17, according to a document his lawyers have filed with the Supreme Court.
He added that the senator could be in danger if they had to have the objectionshed out in open court.
Legal experts believe the case represents a serious threat to Mr. Trump, who was recorded on a phone call with Mr. Raffensperger in January 2021, telling him he wanted to “find” 11,780 votes — one vote more than he needed to declare victory.
In recent months, several of Mr. Trump’s closest allies have been arguing in court that they shouldn’t have to participate. Their track record has been mixed so far.
The Justice Department’s long-running effort to enforce a May 2022 subpoena for all classified records in Trump’s possession. Smith’s investigators got an opportunity to ask more questions of the two people who were hired to look at Trump’s properties after a December hearing in which there was a sealed hearing. Two people testified before the grand jury last month. National media outlets are asking to see public transcripts of hearings and other records in the case.
The two individuals who were hired by Trump to look at his properties had interviews last week, each lasting three hours.
They were hired to search Trump’s Bedminster golf club, Trump Tower in New York, an office location in Florida and a storage unit in Florida last October, months after the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. The extent of information they offered the grand jury remains unclear, though they didn’t decline to answer any questions, one of the sources said.
The prosecutors have taken a more aggressive stance towards the Trump inquiry since last summer, when it was revealed that the Justice Department had evidence that the President hid or removed records from the state of Florida.
By pushing for access to computers, investigators are trying to determine if there is an electronic paper trail regarding the classified documents, another source said.
Taken together, the investigative moves underscore that there is continued grand jury activity in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, at a time when the Justice Department has newer inquiries into unsecured national security records underway involving President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence.
The Biden and Pence situations have been markedly different. Both teams of Biden and Pence have handed the papers back to intelligence officials, despite their highlighting sloppiness around the tracking of classified papers.
A couple of months before Trump became president, his team and the FBI found hundreds of additional pages in his possession after a court-approved warrant. At that time, Trump’s lawyers were locked in a dispute with the Justice Department over whether they had adequately searched his properties and turned over all classified records still in his possession. The investigation has continued after the DOJ was not satisfied.
The Special Purpose Grand Jury Final Report and its Implications for Mar-a-Lago Prosecutor Jack Smith
Jack Smith and his prosecutors have been using a federal grand jury for weeks to question witnesses in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
Portions of the highly anticipated report from a special grand jury in Georgia that investigated Donald Trump’s actions in the state after the 2020 election were released Thursday, revealing two findings of its monthslong probe but leaving many key questions unaddressed.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in an eight-page order released Monday that there are due process concerns for people that the report names as likely violators of state laws, but he found that three sections that do not mention specifics can be released later this week, on Thursday.
“Before its dissolution, the Special Purpose Grand Jury voted to recommend that the Special Purpose Grand Jury Final Report be published. The Special Purpose Grand Jury did not suggest a time or a manner for such publication.
The decision Monday came after a hearing in which the District Attorney’s office argued against publishing the report and a consortium of media outlets agreed with them.
Some parts of the report should be shared with the public while others are not, according to McBurney’s order.
Unlike regular grand juries, which meet for a much more limited time and consider multiple cases, this rarely used body spent roughly eight months interviewing more than 70 witnesses and gathering evidence, though it did not have the power to issue indictments.
The jurors voted to make that report public, but the judge had questions about previous precedents that have generally barred such reports from outlining alleged crimes without an indictment.
McBurney found that the uniqueness of the special purpose grand jury left him with a decision that “is not that simple,” calling the investigation “entirely appropriately a one-sided exploration” that means it would not be fair to have that exploration made public outside of a court setting if and when indictments are issued.
We have to be careful with the future defendants’ rights. It is not appropriate to release the report at this time, because we want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly and we want future defendants to be treated fairly.
Parts of the special grand jury report released Thursday shed light on how the panel – which had 26 members, including three alternates – operated behind closed doors over the past several months.
Willis so far has remained tight-lipped about potential indictments, other than telling the court that “decisions are imminent.” At least 17 people, including Giuliani, were told they may be targets of the investigation, though the district attorney was disqualified due to a conflict of interest.
It is not clear what role, if any, Trump himself will play in the report or in potential indictments. The former president’s lawyers said before the hearing that the lack of requests for him to testify made them assume the grand jury found no wrongdoing.
CNN has found that special counsel Jack Smith is locked in at least eight secretive court battles that aim to uncover many of the most closely held details about Donald Trump and his actions after the 2020 election.
The outcome of these disputes could have far-reaching implications, as they revolve around a 2024 presidential candidate and could lead courts to shape the law around the presidency, separation of powers and attorney-client confidentiality in ways they’ve never done before.
There were a lot of grand jury challenges from people who were potential witnesses in the special counsel’s investigation.
By comparison, Robert Mueller’s grand jury investigation into Trump had a smattering of sealed proceedings where investigators used the court to pry for more answers, and independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater investigation ultimately totaled seven similar sealed cases.
There are about a dozen cases remaining in court, either before the Chief Judge of the DC Circuit or above her in the appeals court. Most appear to follow the typical arc of miscellaneous cases that arise during grand jury investigations, where prosecutors sometimes use the court to enforce their subpoenas.
More challenges from subpoenaed witnesses – including former Vice President Mike Pence – are expected to be filed in the coming days, likely under seal as well. Pence may raise novel questions about the protections around the vice presidency.
“I think we are in extraordinary times. Part of it is I think President Trump continues to assert these theories long after they’ve been batted away by the court,” Neil Eggleston, a former White House counsel who argued for executive privilege during the Clinton administration and the Whitewater investigation.
Other witnesses shied away from trying to refuse to testify after the court in DC ruled that privilege claims wouldn’t hold up when a federal grand jury needed information. In the investigations of the Trump administration witnesses are trying to find out if he still has confidentiality protections.
Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin, the former White House counsel and deputy White House counsel, may decline to answer questions about their conversations with President Trump at the end of his presidency. CNN has previously confirmed that both men were compelled to appear a second time and give more answers after court rulings in November and December. Though they have already testified twice, Trump’s team filed an appeal.
Following the seizure of Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Scott Perry’s cell phone in August in the January 6 investigation, lawyers for the congressman challenged the Justice Department’s ability to access data taken from the phone, citing protection around Congress under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause. Howell refused to keep the records from investigators, but an appeals court panel has blocked the DOJ from seeing the records so far, according to indications in the court record. The case is set for oral arguments on February 23 at the appeals court in Washington. The circuit court also has a request from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to unseal documents in the case.
Howell has released redacted versions of two attorney confidentiality decisions she made last year giving prosecutors access to emails between Perry and three lawyers – John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark and Ken Klukowski – before January 6, 2021.
Clark tried to keep investigators from seeing a draft of his book that mentioned his work for Trump at the Justice Department. Clark had tried to mark the draft outline about his life as an attorney work product.
The Justice Department obtained an order for a Trump adviser to appear in front of investigators. Patel initially declined to answer questions before the grand jury in October, citing his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. Then prosecutors fought for more answers by immunizing his testimony from prosecution, CNN previously reported.
But the Justice Department is against making disclosures related to the grand jury investigations – and won’t even admit the proceedings are taking place.
With the public interest in the cases high they argued that there should be even more secrecy than has been done before.
“To advance the policy goals underlying grand jury secrecy, it may well be necessary for a court to more frequently decline to release judicial opinions ancillary to grand jury investigations that are the subject of intense press attention as opposed to matters that have attracted little public attention,” lawyers from the DOJ’s civil division wrote.
The investigation of the 2020 Georgian presidential election fraud by Donald Trump and a high-profile Democrat, Bill Cunningham, with the Mitt Romney campaign
Trump lost to Joe Biden in Georgia by nearly 12,000 votes in 2020. The former president has insisted that there was nothing problematic about his activities contesting the election.
Cunningham told CNN that there was no doubt that the conduct referred to was done on behalf of Donald Trump.
“That would tell us that this cross section of citizens, having spent nine months working hard at this, has concluded that at least some of what was done on behalf of the former president to overturn the election results was a crime,” he said. I think that is very significant.
Willis’ investigations started in early 2021, soon after a January call became public in which Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to “find” the votes necessary for Trump to win the Peach State in the presidential election.
The grand jury, barred from issuing indictments, wrote their final report after seven months of work, interviewing 75 witnesses, including Rudy Giuliani and Lindsey Graham.
The final report is likely to include the summary of the investigative work, as well as any suggestions for indictments and the conduct that led the panel to its conclusions.
No one has been charged in the case yet, and another grand jury in Fulton County would make those decisions now that the special grand jury has presented its findings to Willis.
The grand jury’s conclusions on the fraud matter is important because it once again establishes that Trump was attempting to overturn the results of a legitimate election. That could factor into charging decisions by state prosecutors, who are weighing whether to indict Trump and his allies with crimes related to 2020.
A Special Grand Jury Investigating Willis’ Decline to Charge Trump with an Iron Fingerprint on the CP Violation Coincident
The pages released Thursday do not name any witnesses alongside that recommendation and do not provide any other details about the witness testimony the special grand jury heard.
The implications of what he did couldn’t be higher. The 2024 presidential campaign is already kicking into gear, and Willis’ decision on charging Trump could potentially scramble the Republican primary field.
The panel didn’t hear anything from Trump. In a statement Thursday, his campaign again touted his “perfect” phone calls to Georgia election officials, saying he did nothing wrong.
The grand jury also reviewed physical and digital evidence, as well as the testimony from investigators and the input of team of assistant district attorneys who outlined for the grand jury the applicable statutes and procedures.
The excerpts said the majority of the Grand jury used their best efforts to listen to witnesses and understand the facts.
Totaling just nine pages – three of which contained no substantive information – the portions released Thursday were short and didn’t provide extensive information on the investigation’s findings.