The countdown has begun, now that a judge in Georgia has ordered key portions of a secret grand jury report to be made public—one that decided whether an Atlanta-area prosecutor should seek to indict former President Donald Trump for trying to fake election results there.
For months, a special purpose grand jury in Fulton County heard evidence about the way Trump tried to meddle in the state’s election—and created a report with specific recommendations on whether Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis should put together a second grand jury to indict him. The DA has been investigating whether Trump broke the law when he demanded that Georgia’s top elections official “find 11,780 votes” for him that didn’t exist to overturn the 2020 election.
The report itself is not an indictment—but it is a key step toward the historic step of indicting a former American president.
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The details are so juicy that the judge overseeing the case has even warned that its release might frustrate the DA’s ongoing investigation, but that the American people deserve to know.
“While publication might not be convenient for the pacing of the District Attorney’s investigation, the compelling public interest in these proceedings and the unquestionable value and importance of transparency require their release,” wrote Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert C. I. McBurney on Monday morning.
The judge ordered the release of the final report’s introduction, conclusion, and a section “in which the special purpose grand jury discusses its concern that some witnesses may have lied under oath during their testimony to the grand jury.”
That detail itself is remarkable, hinting at how those close to Trump may now be scrambling to cover up the way his team in 2020 tried to intimidate Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to flip ballot numbers, weaponized lawsuits to overturn election results, and recruited Republicans to become fake electors willing to keep him in office by undermining the U.S. Constitution.
Willis requested this special purpose grand jury in January 2022, had them sworn in four months later, and started presenting evidence in June. The secretive group completed their final report in December. In his ruling, the judge said they heard from “dozens of witnesses” about what the DA had described as “the facts and circumstances relating directly or indirectly to possible attempts to disrupt the lawful administration of the 2020 elections in the state of Georgia.”
In his order, the judge didn’t exactly side with news organizations seeking details about the ongoing investigation. He said that under Georgia’s unique rules about special purpose grand juries, this report isn’t itself an indictment or technically a “court record.”
“The process was essentially an investigative tool designed to enable the District Attorney to gather more information about what actually happened in the days following the general election in Fulton County (and elsewhere) so that she could make a more informed decision on whether Georgia law was violated and whether anyone should be charged for doing so,” he wrote.
“The final report, as the District Attorney argued, was ultimately destined for her, not the court,” he added. “It will inform her investigative decision-making process, not the court’s.”
