We got some good news and bad news about the long-awaited Georgia special grand jury report on its investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The good news is that Judge Robert McBurney ruled that portions of the report will be released Thursday: the introduction, the conclusion and a section discussing grand jurors’ concerns that some witnesses may have lied during their testimony.
The bad news is that he is allowing those portions of the report to become public because they don’t identify who those witnesses are, and he’s blocking the release of the full report for now. So while soon-to-be-public portions of the report may shed more light on the closely watched probe, they may raise more questions that cannot be answered yet.
Recall that on Jan. 24, McBurney heard arguments from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who argued against releasing the report, citing concerns over fairness to future defendants and stating that decisions from her office were “imminent.” A lawyer for media groups argued in favor of releasing the report and noted that they could appeal the judge’s order if they aren’t satisfied with it. It’s still unclear what “imminent” means to Willis, who needs to bring any potential charges to a regular grand jury, because she couldn’t legally do so through the special grand jury. McBurney’s ruling also ordered her to provide updates on the investigation, suggesting that it’s ongoing. So we’ll be eagerly awaiting whatever portions of the report we can see Thursday, and also eyeing whether there’s any appeal of the judge’s order by media groups that could lead to us learning more sooner.
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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