2 people who searched Trump properties for classified documents testified before a federal grand jury
The Political Landscape of Trump’s White House Term: How Trump could become a Circumstellar Attorney with a New White House Run
The unique and extraordinary legal tangle surrounding Trump means that a third straight US election will be tainted by controversies that will drag the FBI and the Justice Department further into a political morass. (President Joe Biden is facing a special counsel investigation about his handling of documents when he was vice president, while Mike Pence is under DOJ review for similar issues.) In recent years, this has been followed by the Hillary Clinton email flap and investigations into the Trump campaign’s links with Russia during that White House bid, and Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in 2020.
Trump dropped his clearest hint yet Saturday of a new White House run at a moment when he’s on a new collision course with the Biden administration, the courts and facts.
Significant consequences may come from the fact that Trump is trying to be president again under an extraordinary legal cloud. He might have legal troubles that could make some of his Republican rivals less willing to take him down. Perceptions that Trump is caught in a web of criminal investigation might also further tarnish his personal political brand, which has already contributed to some Republican loses in national elections in 2018, 2020 and 2022.
The nation and its political and legal systems are far from being dealt with by the consequences of Trump’s turbulent White House term. GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, alluded to that reality when she said on Sunday that the panel wants to avoid Trump turning his potential testimony into a “circus.”
The potential for a presidential campaign by the ex-president with his claims of political persecution could cause more upheaval than his four years in office.
There is a possibility that the coming political period will focus on the ex- President’s past and future, even though concerns about democracy often rank lower for voters.
The Trump Organization: Implications of the Mar-A-Lago and Jan. 6 investigations on voter fraud in the U.S.
According to multiple sources, both the Mar-a-Lago investigation and the January 6 investigation around Trump are aiming to gather more information and bring witnesses into a federal grand jury in the coming weeks. In the last few days, prosecutors have sent out new subpoenas related to the investigations, which are expected to be returned this week.
In Arizona, one of the ex-President’s favorite candidates, GOP gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake – a serial spreader of voter fraud falsehoods – is again raising doubts about the election system. Lake told a television station that he was afraid it probably would not be fair.
The leader of the House Republicans, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, told the New York Post last week that impeachment of Biden was on the table. Mace told CNN that she didn’t want to see impeachment proceedings because Trump was impeached twice. She said that she was against the process being weaponized. She said that there would have to be an investigation if Biden had committed impeachable offenses.
The GOP is likely to increase its presence in Washington after the elections. Many candidates for president are running on a platform of election fraud, raising questions over if they will accept results if they lose their races in two weeks.
The Trump Organization is going to go on trial in New York on Monday. The ex-President hasn’t been personally charged but the trial could impact his business empire and prompt fresh claims from him that he is being persecuted for political reasons that could inject yet another contentious element into election season. The New York Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against the Trump Organization and three of its adult children, accusing them of running tax and insurance fraud schemes to enrich themselves for years.
Democrats are trying to put Trump back in the political spotlight. President Joe Biden equated MAGA followers with “semi-fascism” and some campaigns have tried to scare critical suburban voters by warning pro-Trump candidates are a danger to democracy.
Anomalous Decrees of an Ex-President: The Case against a New White House Speaker and a Criminal Investigation into Election Practices
It could be bad news for the party in power in Washington if voters head to the polls with high inflation and high gas prices in mind.
The ex- President told his supporters at a Texas rally that he would probably have to try for the presidency again.
It could take multiple days and it will be done with a level of seriousness and rigor that it deserves, according to Cheney.
“This isn’t going to be, you know, his first debate against Joe Biden and the circus and the food fight that that became. This is a lot of issues that are very serious.
After the committee said it would send a subpoena, Trump gave a glimpse of how he might use an appearance before the committee to create a political spectacle. In a 14-page letter, he made multiple false and debunked claims about election fraud, and lashed out at the panel itself, branding members “highly partisan political Hacks and Thugs whose sole function is to destroy the lives of many hard-working American Patriots, whose records in life have been unblemished until this point of attempted ruination.”
The committee took most depositions behind closed doors and on video and used testimony in its presentations. Only its most sympathetic witnesses have appeared in person. While this has helped create a powerful narrative that has painted a picture of shocking derelictions of duty by Trump on January 6, it has also deprived viewers of seeing witnesses under cross examination. This has made it difficult to assess whether the committee’s case would stand up to more rigorous evidentiary requirements in a court of law.
The former President would be less likely to approve of video testimony because it would be harder for him to make the terms of the exchanges and dictate how his testimony is used.
All of it could become an academic. Given the possibility of a Trump legal challenge to the subpoena, the issue could drag on for months and become moot since a possible new Republican House majority would likely sweep the January 6 committee away as one of its first acts.
If it is proven that a crime was committed, Garland will have a dilemma over whether to prosecute a former leader of the nation who is disliked by both political parties and could tear the country apart.
The decision to prosecute an ex-president for running for a second White House term would cause a great deal of controversy. He would be spared from accountability if there was evidence of a crime.
Clark D. Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University, said that the Supreme Court order will allow Mr. Graham to continue his delay strategy by objecting to specific questions from the grand jury.
However, he added, those objections may have to be hashed out in open court — a risk for the senator, Mr. Cunningham said, “because it may disclose to public view both the topics the grand jury is exploring and his unwillingness to answer such questions.”
Matters could also be complicated by the situation in Georgia, where Willis is investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election there. The special grand jury is supposed to have its work done by the end of the year.
It is believed the case is a serious threat to Mr. Trump, who is known to be threatening to get more votes than he needs to win the election.
In recent months, a number of high-profile allies of Mr. Trump have been waging battles in courtrooms around the nation, arguing that they should not have to participate. So far, their track record has been mixed.
Trump’s lawyers had been dreading the prospect of a special counsel, concerned it could drag out the investigation they have fought continuously in court. Trump referred to the possibility as similar to that of Robert Muller, the man who oversaw the Russia investigation.
It will likely take less than a month after the elections for the focus to switch to the presidential race. It could encourage the DOJ officials to make crucial charging decisions quicker, including whether to bring charges against Trump himself or other top political activists.
“They can crank up charges on almost anybody if they wanted to,” said one defense attorney working on January 6-related matters, who added defense lawyers have “have no idea” who ultimately will be charged.
The Attorney General’s decision on a special counsel for Trump’s investigation into the origins of the FBI probe and the case against Judicial Special Counsel Robert Mueller
Special counsels, of course, are hardly immune from political attacks. Both former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe came under withering criticism from their opponents.
The Justice Department has looked to an old guard of former prosecutors, bringing in the Kansas City-based federal prosecutor David Raskin and lawyer David Rody, who was previously a specialized in gang and conspiracy cases.
According to sources familiar with the matter, Rody left Sidley Austin last week to become a senior counsel at the DOJ in the criminal division in Washington.
The team at the DC US Attorney’s Office handling the day-to-day work of the January 6 investigations is also growing – even while the office’s sedition cases against right-wing extremists go to trial.
A handful of other prosecutors have joined the January 6 investigations team, including a high-ranking fraud and public corruption prosecutor who has moved out of a supervisor position and onto the team, and a prosecutor with years of experience in criminal appellate work now involved in some of the grand jury activity.
The decision of whether to charge Trump or his associates will ultimately fall to Attorney General Merrick Garland, whom President Joe Biden picked for the job because his tenure as a judge provided some distance from partisan politics, after Senate Republicans blocked his Supreme Court nomination in 2016.
Garland dodged a CNN question about the prospect of a special counsel for Trump-related investigations but he said that the Justice Department doesn’t shy away from cases that are controversial or political.
“What we will avoid and what we must avoid is any partisan element of our decision making about cases,” Garland said. I want the department to make decisions on their merits, not on any partisan considerations, and they’re not based on the facts or law.
Garland’s decisions go much further than those of Trump. People briefed on the matter say that the investigation into Hunter Biden is coming to a close. After prosecutors recommended against charges, there is a final decision on the Gaetz investigation.
A former Justice Department official said that they would not charge before they were ready to. There will be extra pressure to complete the review of cases sooner than a typical 5 years for DOJ to bring charges.
She is looking to bring witnesses before the grand jury to testify about what happened in the run up to the election. CNN could potentially be indicted in December, according to sources.
Key Trump allies, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows are among witnesses that have tried to fight off subpoenas in the state probe into efforts to interfere with the Georgia 2020 election.
Trump and his allies could face additional criminal exposure, beyond the DOJ probe as prosecutors in Georgia are also investigating efforts to overturn the presidential election results there. The Atlanta-area district attorney leading that probe, Fani Willis, has labeled the individuals who served as pro-Trump electors from Georgia are “targets” in her investigation, along with some notable Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani.
A selection of documents, some legal and some non-government, contained sensitive personal information like medical records that the Justice Department returned to Trump.
According to one source who is familiar with the Justice Department approach, criminal charges may be filed if the intelligence review of those documents leads to a conclusion.
According to two people familiar with the investigation, a judge ordered a Trump adviser to testify about Mar-a-Lago records.
Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court granted Patel immunity from prosecution on any information he provides to the investigation— another significant step that moves the Justice Department closer to potentially charging the case.
The attorney general appointed a special counsel to investigate the retained national defense information at the Mar-a-Lago resort as well as the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
A special counsel is a lawyer who leads an investigation and if necessary prosecutes anyone suspected of crimes. He or she has to be outside the government. A special counsel is typically appointed when the usual investigative bodies under the Justice Department, such as the FBI, have a conflict of interest in carrying out a probe.
The decision to appoint a special counsel was based on recent developments such as the former president announcement that he is a candidate in the next election, and the current president saying he plans to be a candidate.
The former chief prosecutor for the special court in The Netherlands, where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo, will oversee the investigations.
A warning to law enforcement and democracy in the aftermath of the insurrection: ex-President Marjorie Taylor Greene weighed in on the investigation
Speaking at the America First gala at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night, the former president called the special counsel appointment an “appalling announcement” and a “horrendous abuse of power.”
The former president on Friday indicated that he had believed federal investigations into him were slowing down or over until the announcement from Garland. He repeatedly called the investigations political and said it was not a fair situation and would not be a fair investigation, telling the crowd at Mar-a-Lago, “You’d really say enough is enough.”
The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals stopped the review of the seized documents after Judge Raymond Dearie served as the special master.
The ruling removed a major obstacle to the investigation of the mishandling of government records in the White House.
The appeals court said that the law was clear. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. We can’t write rules that allow only former Presidents to do so.
The 11th Circuit said that either approach would be a “radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations” and that “both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”
The former president’s attorneys said his constitutional rights were violated, and that there may have been privileged materials seized. Trump did not mention what he wanted the special master to do, other than allusions toprivileged and potentially privileged materials.
Prosecutors are examining whether there was obstruction of justice, criminal handling of government records and violations of the Espionage Act, which prohibits unauthorized storage of national defense information.
But each sign that once slow burning efforts to work through the trauma of the post-election period are heating up brings a parallel warning that the future threat to truth and democracy remains acute. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance – a key force in the incoming GOP House majority that is likely to try to shut down or obstruct investigations into Trump – is embroiled in yet another controversy over the insurrection.
The Georgia republican said the mob would have been armed if she had her way. She rejected the White House condemnations of her comments by saying she was joking. The ex-president’s voter fraud lies and demands for the end of the constitution were a sign of how his potential second term might unfold if he is re-elected.
It is remarkable how tight a hold Trump’s unprecedented attempt to overturn a presidential election still has on Washington politics – even if many Americans are more concerned with feeding their families and paying rent amid raging inflation. And Trump’s campaign of lies is having a damaging impact. Even after Republicans won the House last month, a new CNN/SSRS poll found that only 34% of Republicans are somewhat confident that elections reflect the will of the people.
Smith and his new team have inherited the January 6 probe at a crucial juncture, as the public has a better understanding of the lengths the former president and his allies went to try to keep Trump in the Oval Office but also as congressional investigators hit the limits of their powers.
“It’s been over 700 days since the Washington Post published the full hour audio … of that highly incriminating phone call – 700 days for the DOJ to finally get around to subpoena him. When does it happen? Under Jack Smith.
It was suggested that Trump’s legal team was guilty of thinking that Smith’s appointment after a period of overseas experience meant he was less likely to be influenced by the January 6 attack and that afresh minded person would be more likely to fight indictments.
Preet Bharara, a former US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that Smith’s appointment and his assembling of a high-powered team of experienced prosecutors represented bad news for Trump.
I do not think they would have left their former jobs unless the Justice Department was on a path to charge. He believes it will happen in a month.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has vowed that no one is above the law and that investigations will go where the evidence leads. The legal process is not easy to understand, so any trials would take a long time. The prospect of a prosecution of a former president and current presidential candidate is so politically explosive that it’s best to take place before the end of the White House race.
“We’re now coming up against a timeframe in which it is a challenge to finish either case, if it is brought, to finish it before the election,” said CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers on “Newsroom” on Monday.
“So, I think they will bring a case on the documents side, if they can, as soon as they can,” Rodgers said, adding that any case on January 6 would probably take more time.
While Smith is following legal procedures, the political context makes it even more incumbent on the DOJ to demonstrate to Americans that it had no choice, for instance, to mount an unprecedented search at an ex-president’s home.
The former president’s conduct is sure to face more withering scrutiny with the final report of the House January 6 committee, which wants to make its case for posterity before it is likely expunged by the incoming House GOP majority next year.
Given its tone and direction, it would be something of a surprise if the panel did not recommend the House refer Trump, among other aides, to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution when it wraps up. Such a step would be merely symbolic, however, as the committee has no power to level charges itself. And the DOJ is not compelled to act on any recommendations. Its own investigations would have to resolve the question of whether professional prosecutors agreed with the conclusions of Congress acting in its constitutional oversight role.
It has been noted that the turn of the year and the early months of 2023 are going to be very significant for Trump and those who are investigating him.
A Justice Department Investigation of the Jan 6, 2021, Rio de Janeiro: The Justice Department’s Jack Smith Trump Investigation is On Track
He is adding two longtime associates who have specialized in public corruption cases, according to a person familiar with the matter: Raymond Hulser, the former chief of the DOJ’s public integrity section, and David Harbach, who conducted cases against former Sen. John Edwards and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.
The expansion under Smith shores up the office’s ability to examine broad conspiracy cases and determine the avenues of the investigation, another source said. The DOJ has brought in more than 20 prosecutors from the DOJ, as well as senior advisers, who were already investigating Trump and his allies.
Setting up Smith’s office does take time, despite Attorney General Garland’s assurances that Smith’s appointment won’t slow the probes. Smith’s team is still working to find a permanent physical office location but has begun changing over email addresses for staffers who had previously been using their usual Justice Department accounts.
Harbach was seen by CNN getting his bearings in the federal courthouse in DC on Thursday, speaking to another special counsel prosecutor about extremist group cases and briefly sitting in on an ongoing Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy trial.
More than 500 people have been convicted of taking part in the January 6, 2021, riot, according to the Justice Department. Four people died in the attack, including rioter Ashli Babbitt who was shot by a Capitol police officer, two members of the crowd who suffered heart attacks, and one who died of an overdose. DOJ says 140 officers were injured that day and five officers died in the months after the riot – one of strokes and four by suicide.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/politics/january-6-justice-department-jack-smith-trump-investigation/index.html
DOJ Sessions Sessions to the January 6 Committee on Trade Corruptcy: Donald Trump, Senator Mike Shirkey and the Biden Family
And where the House select committee hit brick walls in its probe – including with recalcitrant witnesses who claimed privileges, or, like Mark Meadows, bailed on cooperating with congressional investigators midway through – DOJ prosecutors now working under Smith will have certain tools to dismantle those barriers. They include ongoing legal proceedings about piercing the shield of confidentially that normally surrounds a president.
Witness emails, text messages and testimony from the House January 6 committee show Trump’s role in pushing alternate slates of electors, pressing battleground state officials to overturn the election results, attempting to replace the acting attorney general with someone who would embrace election fraud claims and laying the groundwork early on to call his followers to the Capitol.
The planned rally was expected to include an intimate call for everyone to march to the capitol.
“My father doesn’t use text messaging or email,” Donald Trump Jr. told congressional investigators during his interview. As for other messaging apps, “I’m not sure he’d even know what they were,” Trump Jr. said.
As he pressed state officials to upend the outcome of the election, Trump made ambiguous asks rather than direct demands. Michigan’s former Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey said that he remembered that the man never asked for anything. General topics were always part of the discussion.
“If somebody can show me evidence that there was influence peddling with the classified documents in President Trump’s possession, then we would certainly expand it.” He went on to claim that the Biden family was friends with people from the Chinese Communist party, but he did not offer any evidence that they were involved with classified documents. His remarks left the impression that his committee is seeking to find evidence to condemn Biden but is treating Trump differently – exactly the kind of double standard the GOP has claimed the DOJ is employing toward Trump.
The campaign staff testified that Trump was behind the effort to carry it out, and the panel collected other evidence that he knew about it.
According to the evidence collected by the committee, many of the state-based operatives and fraudulent electors themselves were largely in the dark about what the endgame of the gambit was. Several of them said they believed alternate electors were being put together as contingency plan if Trump won the election in their state.
Meanwhile, top Trump campaign officials distanced themselves from the effort after the last prominent election challenge – a far-fetched petition at the Supreme Court – petered out on December 11, 2020.
Mark Meadows’s emails to the committee on prosecuted fraud in the November 2020 midterm election: A new clue to the Mueller investigation
The Department of Defense would be able to prove their case more easily if the scheme had been certified by Congress, according to a New York University School of Law professor.
A memo outlining the plan on December 9 suggests those advisers saw the alternate electors crucial not only in the event of a court ruling that reversed Trump’s electoral loss, but if a “state legislature” or “Congress” deemed the Trump electors as the valid ones.
The committee referred Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution, but it also named several Trump allies as potential co-conspirators in its final report. One of them was former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
In the investigation, the committee has evidence showing that he was involved in every attempt to overturn the election. In thousands of text messages, he admitted to the committee that he had turned over thousands of text messages to them.
On Election day, the texts show, Meadows was connecting conspiracy theorists with GOP lawmakers and rally organizers. Two days after the election, Trump Jr. was texting Meadows with ideas for keeping his father in power, which he thought was the most sophisticated and plausible.
Meadows and Giuliani, Trump’s one-time attorney, were involved in early conversations about putting forward fake slates of electors, according to testimony that former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson gave to the committee.
Transcripts released by the committee also reveal that Hutchinson testified before the committee how Meadows regularly burned documents in his fireplace around a dozen times – about once or twice a week – between December 2020 and mid-January 2021.
After producing the texts to congressional investigators, Meadows changed gears and did not show up for subpoenaed testimony before the House. The lawsuit he filed challenging the subpoena was unsuccessful and the Justice Department didn’t charge him because of his lack of cooperation.
The Department of Justice and Fulton County District Attorney may now have access to witness testimony and records that have been unavailable to the Committee, including testimony from President Trump’s Chief of Staff MarkMeadows and others who invoked their Fifth Amendment rights.
The lawyers for Donald Trump said that the president had committed no crime so there should be no prosecutions against him.
Parlatore insisted Trump and his team “were not looking to overturn the will of the people, only to ensure that the will of the people was accurately counted,” adding that Trump was “absolutely opposed” to the violence that took place at the US Capitol.
Trump’s Search for Property in Mar-a-Lago with a Grand Jury: Measuring Uncertainties in the Justice System
The two individuals who were hired to search four of Trump’s properties last fall were each interviewed for about three hours in separate appearances last week.
They were used to search Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New York, as well as an office location and a storage unit in Florida, six months after the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. They didn’t decline to answer any questions, one of the sources said, and the extent of information they offered remains unclear.
Another source said that investigators are trying to see if there is an electronic paper trail when they try to get access to computers.
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. While they also highlight sloppiness around the tracking of classified papers, both Biden’s and Pence’s teams have readily handed them back to intelligence officials.
Special counsel Jack Smith has used a federal grand jury to question witnesses nearly weekly in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
The once-impeached president launched his first two-state campaign swing on Saturday as he looks to make a political comeback despite being twice impeached.
Then on Monday, Trump’s potential exposure – in two of his multiple strands of legal peril – appeared to grow, foreshadowing a campaign likely to be repeatedly punctuated by distractions from criminal investigations.
Trump is often able to call him to account, legally and politically. He created a foundation for his new presidential quest around the idea that he is being political persecution by the Justice Department, and rogue Democratic prosecutors.
We are going to stop the weaponization of our justice system. This is the first time that a justice system has been like this. The ex-president stated on the trail that it was all an investigation.
This is a message that may be attractive to some of Trump’s base voters who themselves feel alienated from the federal government and previously bought into his claims about a “deep state” conspiracy against him. It is a technique that has been used by demagogues throughout history, in which a strongman leader argues that he is taking the heat so his followers don’t have to.
New Sign of Strength for the Trump Documents Furor: a Free Pass to Trump and the Retention of Secret Documents in the Department of Defense
Ryan Goodman, a former special counsel at the Department of Defense, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday that the latest development was a sign of an advanced special counsel investigation and could indicate that Smith was leaning toward indictments.
It appears that he is attempting to lock in the testimony of the witnesses, to be sure of their stand at trial, and to make sure that the prosecutors can get incriminating evidence against Trump.
Those discoveries allowed Trump to claim that he was being unfairly singled out, even if the cases have significant differences. It will be difficult for Trump to argue that Biden and Pence took material from his home because he claimed that it was his, not the government.
The new sign of strength for the Trump documents probe came a day after the latest sign of a lopsided approach to the controversy over classified material by House Republicans who are giving Trump a free pass.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer was, for example, asked by CNN’s Pamela Brown this weekend why he had no interest in the more than 325 documents found at Trump’s home but was fixated upon the approximately 20 classified documents uncovered in Biden’s premises by lawyers and an unknown number also found during an FBI search of the president’s home this month.
The two special counsel investigations probing Trump and Biden’s retention of secret documents are unfolding independently. In a legal sense, there is no overlap between them. But they will both be subject to the same political inferno if findings are made public.
As the political fallout from the classified documents furor deepened on Monday, the country got a reminder of the treatment that can await lower-ranking members of the federal workforce when secret material is taken home.
CNN reported that court documents show that a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel will plead guilty to retention of national defense information, and that he will be sentenced in February.
Public Comment on the Fulton County Superior Court’s Special Purpose Grand Jury Report: State Law Violations, the Prosecutor’s Report and the Judge’s Order
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.
Instead, the special grand jury wrote a final report with recommendations for the district attorney’s office about how to proceed, including potential violations of state law — though Willis does not have to follow those suggestions if she decides to seek indictments from a regular grand jury.
The report was not released at this time to protect the rights of those that might be indicted later.
McBurney’s order states that parts of the report should be available to the public, while others should remain confidential until more information is available from prosecutors.
Unlike a regular grand jury, which can take much longer to consider multiple cases, this body only spent about eight months interviewing 70 witnesses and gathering evidence, but did not have the power to issue indictments.
Jurors voted to have that report made public, but the judge had questions about the applicability of prior precedents that have generally barred such reports from outlining alleged crimes without an indictment.
It would not be fair to have the exploration made public outside of a court setting, according to McBurney, who said that the special purpose grand jury leaves him with a decision that is not that simple.
“We have to be mindful of protecting future defendants’ rights,” Willis said. “We want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly, and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it’s not appropriate at this time to have this report released.”
Though the work of the special grand jury was largely conducted behind closed doors, relevant public court filings have given clues as to potential targets of the investigation who might have broken laws. Those details include:
Despite telling the court that decisions are imminent, he has not said anything about potential indictments. At least 17 people were notified they may be considered targets of the investigation, including Giuliani, Shafer and the rest of the fake electors, though the DA was disqualified from investigating new Lt. Gov. Burt Jones by Judge McBurney because of a conflict of interest.
