The Fulton County special grand jury, which has been investigating whether there was any criminal interference in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election, has completed its eight-month investigation, according to a judge overseeing the panel.
The 26-member special grand jury was requested by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and convened by the Fulton County Superior Court on January 20, 2022, to investigate whether former president Donald Trump and his acolytes interfered with the election in the state. The grand jury recommended making its report public.
In an order issued Monday morning, Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney announced that the panel will be dissolved. “The Court thanks the grand jurors for their dedication, professionalism, and significant commitment of time and attention to this important matter,” the judge wrote. “It was no small sacrifice to serve.”
The judge also scheduled a hearing for later this month to hear arguments on whether the grand jury’s report should be made public.
Fulton DA Fani Willis first launched the investigation in February 2021 by focusing on Trump’s infamous conversation with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which the former president pressed him to “find” 11,780 votes to overturn Biden’s win in the state. But it soon expanded to include a host of other post-2020 incidents like Trump’s plot to appoint fake electors and voting machine breaches in Coffee County in January 2021.
Last January, Willis sent Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Christopher Brasher a letter requesting a special grand jury after she determined that Trump’s potential malfeasance in the state branched out beyond his call with Raffensperger to “possible criminal disruptions.”
She found that “individuals associated with these disruptions” had contacted agencies including the Raffensperger’s office, the Georgia Attorney General, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia, leaving her office as the “sole agency with jurisdiction that is not a potential witness” to the matter, and that multiple witnesses had refused to cooperate with her investigation.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, prosecutors have informed at least 18 people—including Rudy Giuliani, who allegedly gave the Georgia legislators riddled with falsehoods—that they’re targets of the investigation and could be charged.
Over about six months, the grand jury heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, including Raffensperger, Giuliani, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Several of them tried to dodge the grand jury in the year since it first convened. Giuliani, for example, once argued that a medical procedure prevented him from being able to testify in-person back in August, while Sen. Graham didn’t show up to his first scheduled appearance.
Correction: This post initially misidentified the body to which Rudy Giuliani allegedly gave false testimony; it was the Georgia state legislature.
