A US grand jury probing attempts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in the key state of Georgia has recommended multiple indictments, the forewoman revealed on Tuesday.
\nIn unusually public remarks on the closed-door legal process, especially since no indictments have been formally announced, Emily Kohrs said her 23-member panel had recommended charges against more than a dozen people, without naming anyone.
\n\u201cThere are certainly names that you would recognise, yes,\u201d she told NBC News in a televised interview.
\n\u201cThere are names also that you might not recognise.\u201d She told several outlets that in the jury\u2019s final report, the result of seven months of work, the people and crimes referenced \u201cis not a short list.\u201d
\nProsecutors have spent two years looking into whether the former president and his allies committed crimes in their bid to overturn his defeat in the southern state to Joe Biden by fewer than 12,000 votes.
\nThe known targets include Trump\u2019s former attorney Rudy Giuliani and 16 Republican activists who posed as presidential \u201celectors\u201d to sign certificates falsely claiming the 76-year-old Republican had won the Peach State.
\nKohrs would not reveal if Trump \u2014 who has announced a third run at the White House for 2024 \u2014 was among those recommended for indictment.
\nBut she told The New York Times it was \u201cnot going to be shocked\u201d by the jury\u2019s finding. \u201cIt\u2019s not rocket science,\u201d she said.
\n\u2018No giant plot twist\u2019
\nOver the seven months, the panel took testimony from 75 witnesses, including Trump\u2019s fourth chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Giuliani.
\nKohrs later told CNN that Meadows \u201cdidn\u2019t share very much at all,\u201d and had asserted his constitutional right not to speak.
\nAsked if she had security concerns about speaking so publicly about the heated topic, Kohrs said: \u201cI\u2019m aware of my safety, but I\u2019m not worried.\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think I should be \u2014 I don\u2019t think I\u2026 or any of the jury members did anything that says we believe one way or the other about politics.\u201d
\nA Georgia judge allowed the release last week of three redacted sections from the grand jury\u2019s report, revealing that members found no evidence of widespread voter fraud, undercutting Trump\u2019s claim that he had been robbed of the election.
\nThe released sections did not include specific charging recommendations but revealed that the jury believed witnesses may have lied under oath.
\n\u201cI will tell you that if the judge releases the recommendations, it is not going to be some giant plot twist,\u201d Kohrs told the Times.
\nDemocratic District Attorney Fani Willis will make the ultimate charging decision after presenting the panel\u2019s findings to one of the criminal grand juries regularly empaneled in Georgia\u2019s Fulton County, a process that may already have started.
\nThe investigation was touched off by Trump\u2019s January 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia election officials whom he infamously asked to \u201cfind\u201d the 11,780 votes that would put him one vote ahead of Biden in the state.
\nKohrs also told CNN that she had heard more of Trump\u2019s recorded calls during the process.
\nThe Georgia investigation 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\u2019s election loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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