WASHINGTON – A United States grand jury probing interference by Donald Trump’s campaign in the 2020 election has recommended multiple indictments, the forewoman revealed yesterday, the strongest signal yet of potential legal jeopardy the ex-president faces as he seeks another term.
Emily Kohrs offered local and national media an insight into the findings of the Georgia grand jury, which has been looking for seven months at whether Trump broke the law – although she didn’t name targets.
“It is not a short list,” Kohrs told several outlets of the people and crimes referenced in the jury’s final report. She told MSNBC more than a dozen people were in the crosshairs.
“There are certainly names that you would recognise, yes,” she added.
“There are names also that you might not recognise.”
Prosecutors have spent two years looking into whether Trump and his allies committed crimes in a bid to overturn his defeat in Georgia to Joe Biden by fewer than 12,000 votes.
The known targets include Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani and 16 Republican activists who posed as presidential “electors” to sign certificates falsely claiming the 76-year-old Republican had won the Peach State.
Kohrs would not reveal if Trump – who has announced a third run at the White House for 2024 – was among those recommended for indictment.
But she told The New York Times it was “not going to be shocked” by the jury’s finding.
“It’s not rocket science,” she said.
The investigative panel of 23 jurors took testimony from 75 witnesses, including Trump’s fourth chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Giuliani.
A Georgia judge allowed the release last week of three redacted sections from the grand jury’s report, revealing that members found no evidence of widespread voter fraud, undercutting Trump’s claim that he had been robbed of the election.
The released sections did not include specific charging recommendations but revealed that the jury believed witnesses may have lied under oath.
“I will tell you that if the judge releases the recommendations, it is not going to be some giant plot twist,” Kohrs told the Times.
“You probably have a fair idea of what may be on there. I’m trying very hard to say that delicately.”
Democratic district attorney Fani Willis will make the ultimate charging decision after presenting the panel’s findings to one of the criminal grand juries regularly empanelled in Georgia’s Fulton County, a process that may already have started.
The investigation was touched off by Trump’s January 2, 2021 phone call with Georgia election officials whom he infamously asked to “find” the 11,780 votes that would put him one vote ahead of Biden in the state.
It is one of multiple probes into alleged criminal actions by the former president and his lieutenants, who are accused of involvement in a multi-step scheme to cling to power despite Trump’s election loss. – AFP, February 22, 2023
