A Fulton County judge has set Sept. 8 as the possible release date of the final report of the special purpose grand jury that investigated interference with the 2020 presidential election and recommended a number of people be indicted for alleged crimes.
The document could show if members of the panel wanted to indict additional people, beyond the 19 charged by Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis.
Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney in February unsealed portions of the report, but not the section that detailed who the grand jurors recommended be indicted. He kept those under wraps at the urging of Willis, who said she was concerned about defendants’ due process rights before she went to a regular grand jury to obtain an indictment.
“Much has changed since that February order was entered,” McBurney wrote in an order issued Monday. “As anyone with an internet connection knows, the district attorney has indicted 19 individuals for their alleged participation in a ‘racketeering enterprise’ purportedly designed to interfere with the lawful administration of the 2020 general election in Georgia.”
Those indicted included former President Donald Trump, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Georgia GOP chair David Shafer and others.
Such an “exceedingly public development” eliminates due process concerns, at least for the 19 defendants charged in the case and who might have been named in the special grand jury’s final report, McBurney wrote. For that reason, he said, he plans to release the final report at 10 a.m. on Sept. 8.
At the same time, McBurney said, if “any concerned party believes something less than everything should be published,” they have until close of business on Sept. 6 to raise an objection. “If objections are timely filed, they will be carefully considered and a new publication date will be announced,” he said.
Objections would likely come from individuals who were not indicted but who may believe the special grand jury voted that they be charged. They may want to keep such a recommendation from being made public.
When the full special grand jury’s final report is published, it will show the vote tallies from the 23-member panel on each recommendation as to who should be indicted, grand jurors told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in prior interviews. This will allow the public to know whether the panel was overwhelmingly in favor or closely divided on each person.
In February, McBurney unsealed the final report’s introduction, conclusion and a section where special grand jurors expressed concerns that some witnesses may have perjured themselves when testifying before the panel. The final report also said members of the special grand jury agreed unanimously that there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election as Trump and his supporters had claimed.
In an interview with the AJC after the Aug. 14 racketeering indictment was announced, three special grand jurors, who requested anonymity out of concerns for their safety, said they were pleased with the case brought by Willis and her prosecution team.
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