ATLANTA (AP) — Attorneys for former President Donald Trump in Georgia have criticized the Fulton County investigation into illegal election meddling. After the forerunner of the special assembly appointed to assist in the investigation went public this week.
Emily Kors spoke first in an interview published by The Associated Press on Tuesday, a story that followed interviews with other print and television news outlets. He described what happened behind the closed doors of the jury room — including how some witnesses behaved, how attorneys interacted with witnesses and how some witnesses asserted their rights by not answering certain questions.
Trump attorneys Drew Findling and Jennifer Little said that despite early concerns about the group’s actions, the grand jury remained silent out of respect for the process. But they said the revelations provided by the Gohrs this week compelled them to speak out.
“The end product is a completely tainted and questionable credibility of anything,” Findling said in an interview with the AP Wednesday evening. “There’s no remorse for a 30-year-old veteran” who was part of “a failed organization,” he said.
“He was the product of a circus that cloaked itself as a special-purpose grand jury,” he said.
Fineling and Little said they are on top of all legal issues in the case and are keeping their options open. As of Thursday morning, they had not filed anything.
Special Assembly At the request of Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis, Trump and his Republican allies are investigating whether they committed any crimes while trying to overturn his narrow 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia. The committee has no indictment power, but can make recommendations to Willis, a Democrat, who will decide whether to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.
Willis’ office declined to comment on Gohrs’ media appearances, other than to say they did not know in advance that he planned to give interviews. Spokesman Jeff DeSantis declined Thursday to comment on Findling’s and Little’s comments.
Fineling and Little expressed concern that the special grand jury, which they said was supposed to make recommendations to the district attorney based on testimony and evidence presented in the jury room, was allowed to see and read news reports on the case and knew some of it. Attempts where witnesses do not testify. Corse said prosecutors told jurors they could read and watch the news but urged them to keep an open mind.
Gohrs shared many anecdotes from the show that he was funny and very candid in TV interviews, sometimes laughing or making faces.
Fineling and Little said the district attorney’s office, which advises the special grand jury, should have done a better job of educating grand jurors about the process’ uniqueness and rules and limitations.
“It’s not a joke,” Findling said. “This is no laughing matter. This is no laughing matter. “
In a post on his social media network on Wednesday, Trump called the Georgia investigation “absurd, a strictly political continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time.” He expressed dismay at the fact that the Gohrs “go on a media tour that, to an incredible degree, exposes the inner workings and thoughts of the grand jury.”
While the Gohrs have not publicly named any individuals the special grand jury has recommended for possible indictment, Fineling and Little said they would implicate Trump in response to media questions about the allegations. This is a problem because they have examined the evidence and are convinced that “our client has not broken any laws.”
Trump lawyers also said the situation could have been avoided if the judge had instructed members of the special jury not to speak to news organizations until the panel’s full final report was released. Several parts of the report were published last week, but Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said any section prescribing specific charges for specific individuals would now be confidential.
During a hearing last month, a lawyer for a coalition of news organizations, including the AP, urged immediate release of the full report.
In the federal system, grand juries are prohibited from talking about what witnesses said or anything that happened in the room. But the oath taken by grand jurors in Georgia says only that they cannot talk about their deliberations.
The grand jury was disbanded on Jan. 9, and McBurney told the AP that he later met with grand jurors to discuss where things stand. He said they gave them “rules of the road” that were legally permissible and not allowed to be discussed publicly.
He said that we can discuss what the witnesses said and what is in the report but we cannot talk about the discussion as it is their truth.
Little said he believes some of the things Gohrs discussed in the interviews were part of the debate, including the decisions to recommend multiple indictments and the reasons why grand jurors have not subpoenaed Trump to testify.
Willis said he has been interested in the Jan. 2, 2021 phone call since the beginning of the investigation two years ago. In it, Trump suggested to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger that he, along with a fellow Republican, could “find” the votes needed to overturn Trump’s loss to Biden in the state.
“Here’s what I want to do: I want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call.
More than two years after Willis’ trial began, it has become clear that his investigation has expanded to other areas, including fake Republican voters who swore Trump won the state and tampered with election equipment in a rural South. District of Georgia.
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