For those eager to get their hands on the Georgia special grand jury report, I have some bad news: The judge didn’t rule on the issue at Tuesday’s hearing. It’s unclear how and when he will.
But for those eager to see Donald Trump and others charged in the Peach State for crimes stemming from their attempt to overturn the 2020 election, I have some interesting news from the hearing: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said decisions are “imminent.”
Fulton County DA Fani Willis asks judge to keep grand jury's report on 2020 election interference under seal, alluding to fairness concerns for "future defendants."
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 24, 2023
"Decisions are imminent," Willis adds. pic.twitter.com/x1asPgpd7e
And the DA’s reasoning for wanting to keep the grand jury report secret, at least for now, also suggests that she’s gearing up to bring criminal charges. That’s because Willis pressed Judge Robert McBurney to consider the rights of future defendants — that’s defendants, plural — who could be implicated by the report. So, it’s a little more than a hint that the DA’s imminent decision could include criminal charges against multiple people, though against whom wasn’t specified at Tuesday’s hearing.
An odd dynamic at the hearing came in the form of the parties who squared off against each other to debate arcane points of Georgia law: Willis against media groups pressing to have the report released. Absent was any potential defendant, including Trump, whose lawyers issued a strange statement ahead of the hearing that assumed the special grand jury wouldn’t recommend charges against him. Here's the full statement from Trump's Georgia team. "We can assume that the grand jury did their job and looked at the facts and the law, as we have, and concluded there were no violations of the law by President Trump." #gapol pic.twitter.com/oWxE9K2Xqm When exactly we learn what the special grand jury thinks about that assumption remains to be seen, but we could imminently learn the thinking of Willis and a regular grand jury, which, unlike the special grand jury, can actually bring charges against Trump and others.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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