[“A lot’s gonna come out sooner or later,” one of the jurors
said. “And it’s gonna be massive. It’s gonna be massive.”]
[[link removed]]

BEHIND THE SCENES OF TRUMP GEORGIA GRAND JURY  
[[link removed]]


 

Tamar Hallerman and Bill Rankin
March 16, 2023
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ “A lot’s gonna come out sooner or later,” one of the jurors
said. “And it’s gonna be massive. It’s gonna be massive.” _

,

 

The bomb-sniffing dog was new. The special grand jurors investigating
interference in Georgia’s 2020 elections hadn’t before seen that
level of security on the third floor of the Fulton County courthouse
where they had been meeting in secret for nearly eight months.

Oh, God, I hope it doesn’t find anything, one juror recalled
thinking as the German Shepherd inspected the room. “It was
unexpected. We were not warned of that,” she said.

The reason for the heightened surveillance was the day’s star
witness: Michael Flynn, former President Donald Trump’s national
security adviser. An election denier who suggested martial law should
be imposed to seize voting machines in Georgia and other swing states
where Trump lost, Flynn had only agreed to appear after
being compelled
[[link removed]] to
by two courts in his home state of Florida.

Fulton law enforcement was taking no chances on that unseasonably warm
December day, concerned about who might turn up to protect Flynn, a
prominent figure among far-right, conspiracy theorist and Christian
nationalist groups. Outside, on the courthouse steps, sheriffs’
deputies and marshals carrying automatic weapons kept watch
[[link removed]].

No bomb was found. Flynn, who was ultimately the last witness jurors
heard testimony from, went on to assert his Fifth Amendment rights and
refused to answer many of prosecutors’ questions.

But the experience brought home to some jurors just how important and
consequential their work could be.

How we reported this story
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviewed five members of the
special purpose grand jury to gain a better understanding of its
workings. All five — three men and two women — spoke on the
condition of not being named because of concerns about their safety
and privacy. It is also the AJC’s policy not to publish the
identities of jurors without their permission.

The jurors’ identities have been a closely guarded secret. The AJC
confirmed their service using pay stubs from Fulton Superior Court,
the special grand jury handbook given to them on selection day and
other court documents.

The jurors discussed details surrounding their eight months on the
panel but declined to talk about their internal deliberations or share
their indictment recommendations.

In an exclusive interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, five
of the 23 special grand jurors recounted what it was like to be a
pivotal — but anonymous — part of one of the most momentous
criminal investigations in U.S. history; one which could lead to
indictments of former President Donald Trump and his allies.

“One of the most important things we’ll be a part of in our life
was this eight month process that we did,” one juror told the AJC.
It was “incredibly important to get it right.”

Over two hours, in a windowless conference room, the jurors shared
never-before-heard details about their experiences serving on the
panel, which met in private, often three times a week.

They described a process that was by turns fascinating, tedious and
emotionally wrenching. One juror said she would cry in her car at the
end of the day after hearing from witnesses whose lives had been
upended by disinformation and claims of election fraud.

For months, they were unable to talk to friends, family members and
co-workers about what they were doing. They said the overall panel was
diverse, with different races, economic backgrounds and political
viewpoints represented.

Many emerged with heightened respect for election workers and others
who kept the state’s voting integrity intact.

‘I took it very seriously’

The grand jury was dissolved
[[link removed]] in
January after submitting its final report.

The jurors who spoke to the AJC declined to talk about portions of the
document which remain under seal, including who they recommended
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indict. They also remained
mum on their internal deliberations. In a previous interview with the
AJC
[[link removed]],
jury foreperson Emily Kohrs said “it’s not a short list” when
asked how many people the special grand jury suggested be indicted.
(Kohrs was not among the jurors the AJC interviewed for this article.)

Several jurors said they decided to speak out for the first time in
response to criticism leveled at the probe after Kohrs spoke to
multiple media outlets last month. Some detractors, including
Trump’s Georgia-based legal team
[[link removed]],
said that Kohrs’ remarks showcased an unprofessional, politically
tainted criminal investigation.

The jurors, who stressed their aim was not to drag down Kohrs,
underscored that they understood the gravity of their assignment and
took care to be active participants and attend as many sessions as
possible. They said the investigation was somber and thorough.

“I just felt like we, as a group, were portrayed as not serious,”
one of the jurors said. “That really bothered me because that’s
not how I felt. I took it very seriously. I showed up, did what I was
supposed to do, did not do what I was asked not to do, you know?”

Their friendly rapport was also evident throughout the interview, as
jurors at times cracked inside jokes and teased one another. They
indicated they held the DA’s team of prosecutors and investigators
in high regard.

They also divulged details from the investigation that had yet to
become public.

One was that they had heard a recording of a phone call Trump placed
to late Georgia House Speaker David Ralston
[[link removed]] in
which the president asked the fellow Republican to convene a special
session of the Legislature to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow
victory in Georgia.

One juror said Ralston proved to be “an amazing politician.”

The speaker “basically cut the president off. He said, ‘I will do
everything in my power that I think is appropriate.’ … He just
basically took the wind out of the sails,” the juror said.
“‘Well, thank you,’ you know, is all the president could say.”

Ralston, who died in November, and other legislative leaders
[[link removed]] did
not call a special session. A former Ralston aide declined to comment
for this story, and a Trump campaign spokesman did not respond to a
request for comment.

Ralston had previously told a North Georgia media outlet that he was
contacted by Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani in December
2020, but the existence of a tape had not been previously known.

There are at least two other recorded phone calls between Trump and
Georgia officials from that period. The president’s now-infamous
January 2021 conversation with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger
was quickly leaked. Audio of his December 2020 call with Frances
Watson, then an investigator with the secretary of state’s office
who was conducting an audit of absentee ballots in Cobb County, also
surfaced publicly.

Trump and Georgia 2020 Election - Continuing Coverage

The Trump Grand Jury podcast from the AJC - Breakdown Season 9
[[link removed]]

Georgia and Trump: Takeaways from the push to overturn the 2020
election
[[link removed]]

Who is Fani Willis: An indepth profile of the Georgia prosecutor
[[link removed]]

AJC Special Report: Inside the campaign to undermine Georgia’s
election
[[link removed]]

COMPLETE COVERAGE OF TRUMP AND THE GEORGIA INVESTIGATION
[[link removed]]

‘I’m never gonna be on time ever again’

The Fulton County residents who would become grand jurors first
reported to the courthouse on May 2, 2022. Some had no idea what they
were in for.

One remembered looking at her phone the morning of jury selection to
see an alert from Channel 2 Action News warning about road closures
downtown due to selection of the Trump special grand jury. After some
quick online searching, she realized what could be in store.

“I emailed my boss and I was like, I’m gonna be out a little bit
longer than I probably thought today,” she said.

They arrived to a courthouse under lockdown.

The Fulton Sheriff’s Office had blocked off vehicle traffic
[[link removed]] on
the surrounding streets and stationed deputies with assault rifles at
the building’s main entrance. The emptiness inside created an eerie
feeling.

Two-hundred Fulton residents were summoned, but Fulton County Judge
Robert McBurney whittled down the pool quickly. He asked only two
questions: did they have any conflicts and could they keep an open
mind?

Would-be jurors were assigned numbers based on the order in which they
arrived at the courthouse. Those picked — 23 jurors and three
alternates — were the early birds.

“I’m never gonna be on time ever again,” one juror joked.

After briefly introducing themselves, jurors were tasked with
selecting a foreperson who would sign subpoenas and administer the
oath to witnesses.

Kohrs, 30, quickly volunteered for the position. Despite having never
voted, she was interested in politics and the legal process and knew
she could devote more time than many others because she was between
jobs.

No one stepped up to challenge Kohrs, though one juror considered
nominating the panel’s lone lawyer. The lawyer agreed to serve as
deputy foreperson, jurors said.

After their work that day was done, jurors were silently led through
tunnels to the courthouse basement, walking past a SWAT team stationed
in the hallways to armored vans that took them to their off-site cars.

“It was the haunted house of SWAT,” one juror said.

For others, that’s when the gravity of their assignment hit home.

“We knew it was big, but as they were leading us out, then that’s
when it hit. I was like, holy moly,” one said.

After that first day the jurors received no special security as they
reported to and from the courthouse, carrying bag lunches. Many would
walk through the front entrance, past the bay of cameras waiting for
A-list witnesses, praying that the news media wouldn’t figure out
why they were there.

‘We can do business with that’

The DA’s office gave each juror a binder, which quickly grew swollen
with notes. They rarely had advance notice of who would be
testifying. Instead, they would file in a little before 9 a.m.,
taking their usual seats in the three rows of chairs which had been
arranged in a large conference room, and be handed a piece of paper
with the name and photo of the day’s witness.

Their first order of business was to make sure they had a quorum. When
special prosecutor Nathan Wade received a number of 16 or more, he’d
say, “We can do business with that,” a phrase the grand jury wove
into their final report as a nod to Wade.

When witnesses appeared before them, the jurors in the front row were
so close they could have reached out and touched them.

One of the jurors described how the 75 witnesses they heard from or
were told about fell into three buckets. The first set, who they
questioned early on, were generally forthcoming. The second was
witnesses who needed to receive subpoenas but were willing to talk.
The third was people who clearly did not want to be there and had
fought their summons. They were the last witnesses jurors heard from,
and many had at least at one point been close to Trump.

“It was like night and day when that second group finished and we
got to the third,” the juror said. “The tone in the room
completely changed, like overnight.”

Prosecutors generally took the lead on questioning witnesses and
recommending who to subpoena, but jurors would step in to ask their
own questions. Jurors said prosecutors took pains not to give their
opinions, only offering guidance on what was illegal under the
law. Several jurors said prosecutors never tipped their hand about
who might be charged.

Among the most compelling witnesses, various jurors said, were Fulton
County poll workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, who had
received death threats after being singled out by Trump and his
then-attorney Giuliani. Another mentioned Eric Coomer, the onetime
executive for Dominion Voting Systems, who left his job after being
vilified. Also mentioned was Tricia Raffensperger
[[link removed]],
the wife of Georgia’s secretary of state, who broke down when
describing the vitriol and threats leveled at her, one juror said.

“I was pretty emotional throughout the whole thing,” a juror said.
“I wouldn’t cry in front of any of the witnesses, but when I would
get in my car, I was like, I just left that and I have to just go do
my job now?…. I just know things that are hard to know.”

The jurors heard first from Bo Rutledge, dean of the University of
Georgia law school and a former clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas. Rutledge, who appeared under subpoena, explained
presidential election law and repeatedly told jurors he was nervous
because he didn’t want to make mistakes.

Former. U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler each testified.
Both lost runoff bids which took place as Trump railed against
election fraud in the state.

Perdue, a key Trump ally, was asked about a meeting at Truist Park in
December 2020, a juror said. During that encounter, Perdue told Gov.
Brian Kemp he wanted the legislature to convene a special session,
which Trump was seeking to challenge Biden’s victory.

One grand juror recalled U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s testimony
[[link removed]] about
Trump’s state of mind in the months after the 2020 election.

“He said that during that time, if somebody had told Trump that
aliens came down and stole Trump ballots, that Trump would’ve
believed it,” the juror said.

Taking the Fifth

Some of the more trying days were when a witness invoked his or her
Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions.

“When people would take the Fifth over and over, we could kind of
go, ugh” one juror said. “Not because we’re like, oh my gosh
you’re guilty, whatever. It was like we’re going to be here all
day.”

Two of the jurors estimated that as many as 10 witnesses invoked their
Fifth Amendment rights, some doing so even when asked to describe
their education. In the prior interview, foreperson Kohrs said
high-profile witnesses like Flynn, former White House Chief of
Staff Mark Meadows
[[link removed]] and Giuliani
[[link removed]] refused
to answer some, if not most, of prosecutors’ questions.

On some occasions, when a witness invoked the Fifth, a prosecutor
would play video of speeches, TV interviews or testimony the witness
had given elsewhere.

“I don’t know if it was like cruelty, but they’re like, if
you’re going to take the Fifth, we’re going to watch you,” one
of the jurors said.

Another juror said the panel was told repeatedly by prosecutors that
they should not perceive someone invoking his or her Fifth Amendment
right against self-incrimination as an admission of guilt.

“They were very passionate about saying: ‘I need you to understand
that,” she said.

A notable moment came as prosecutors were questioning a witness who
said he possessed additional evidence of election fraud at his office.

“‘I mentioned something like, ‘oh, I’d like to see that.’
One of the DA’s team stood up immediately, left, came back in and he
handed a subpoena to the witness still sitting there,” a juror
recounted, declining to disclose who the witness was.

At another point, they learned a man babbling about election fraud
had appeared on the third floor of the courthouse. He never breached
the jury room.

The Trump question

Jurors’ accounts of the proceedings largely aligned with Kohrs’.
But one area where they differed involved the jury’s role in the
decision not to subpoena or voluntarily ask Trump to testify. 
[[link removed]]One of the male grand jurors pushed back
on Kohrs’ use of the collective “we” during her previous
interviews.

“I think the president just was one where we chose to focus our
energies elsewhere, because it would be more productive in the long
run,” Kohrs previously told the AJC.

That statement raised questions
[[link removed]] among
some critics about whether Kohrs had improperly disclosed jury
deliberations. But the other jurors told the AJC that the group had
never discussed summoning Trump during its deliberations, suggesting
it was prosecutors’ decision. In response, Kohrs said in a text
that she “trust(ed) their recollection. And honestly with so much we
talked about, it’s definitely possible I got it mixed up a bit.”

One of the jurors said he believed the special grand jury already had
the information it needed and that Trump had he been summoned would
likely have invoked the Fifth Amendment, which he reportedly did more
than 400 times when he sat for a deposition last summer with the New
York Attorney General’s office.

But the same juror said, “with the benefit of hindsight, we should
have sent a voluntary invitation to former President Trump and just
invited him.” He said he changed his mind after the Manhattan DA
asked Trump to appear before that grand jury investigating hush money
payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Jurors said it took them four days to complete their final report,
although they noted it had been a work in progress. Prosecutors
provided a list of relevant laws, but the jurors said they wrote the
report themselves.

When they wrapped up, in mid-December, there was no celebration or
fanfare — the jurors simply went home.

On Feb. 1, they gathered at the courthouse again for a mandatory
meeting to discuss their “continuing obligations” as
jurors. Willis thanked them for their service. McBurney told them
they were allowed to publicly discuss witnesses, what prosecutors
said and what was in the final report but not the substance of their
deliberations.

Prosecutors told the jurors that their notes would be destroyed, an
announcement that angered one of the jurors, who had been toying with
writing something about his experience. And they promised to send
jurors a pen and coffee mug as a mark of their appreciation. Jurors
said they’ve received neither so far.

‘It’s gonna be massive’

Looking back, several participants said they were honored to be a
small part of history but were glad that they got to do so
anonymously.

One juror expressed appreciation for the behind-the-scenes look the
group received of Georgia politics and the ballot-counting process.
Another indicated he had grown more jaded after it became clear that
some witnesses were telling the grand jury one thing about the
election under oath and then casting doubt on the system when they
returned to the campaign trail, sometimes hours later.

The group said they had no idea what Willis planned to do in response
to their recommendations. But many described an increased regard for
the elections system and the people who run it.

“I can honestly give a damn of whoever goes to jail, you know, like
personally,” one juror said. “I care more about there being more
respect in the system for the work that people do to make sure
elections are free and fair.”

Said another juror: “I tell my wife if every person in America knew
every single word of information we knew, this country would not be
divided as it is right now.”

The grand jurors said they understand why the public release of their
full final report needs to wait until Willis makes indictment
decisions.

“A lot’s gonna come out sooner or later,” one of the jurors
said. “And it’s gonna be massive. It’s gonna be massive.”

_Staff writer Greg Bluestein contributed to this article._

_Tamar Hallerman [[link removed]] is an
award-winning senior reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
She's the paper's lead reporter covering the Fulton County special
grand jury investigation of whether former President Donald Trump or
his allies criminally interfered in Georgia's 2020 elections. She also
co-hosts the ninth season of the AJC's Breakdown podcast. [Follow
Tamar Hallerman on twitter]
[[link removed]] email
[[link removed]]_

_Bill Rankin [[link removed]], the
newspaper’s legal affairs reporter, has worked for the AJC for more
than 30 years. Since 2015, he has been the host and narrator of the
AJC’s Breakdown podcast. Covering the state’s court system has
allowed Bill to cover some of Georgia’s most sensational trials:
Atlanta lawyer Fred Tokars, NFL star Ray Lewis, the infamous Gold Club
and the hot-car case against Justin Ross Harris. Bill has also
conducted lengthy investigations the exposed inequities and breakdowns
in Georgia’s indigent defense system, its administration of the
death penalty and its civil and criminal justice systems. Twitter.
[[link removed]] Email.
[[link removed]]_

_Subscribe to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution newsletter._

* Donald Trump
[[link removed]]
* Georgia
[[link removed]]
* Fani Willis
[[link removed]]
* election fraud
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]