Trump Lawyers Move to Quash Georgia Grand Jury Report, Evidence

(The Washington Post) — Lawyers for former president Donald Trump filed a motion in Georgia court Monday seeking to quash the release of the final report of an Atlanta-area special grand jury that investigated whether Trump and his allies broke the law when they sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state.

The motion filed in Fulton County Superior Court also seeks to “preclude the use of any evidence derived” from the special grand jury investigation, claiming it was “conducted under an unconstitutional statute” and “through an illegal and unconstitutional process” that violated Trump’s due process rights.

The filing comes as Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) is expected to announce in coming weeks whether she will file charges in the case. In January, Willis told a judge that charging decisions in the case are “imminent.”

Trump’s attorneys are also pushing to recuse Willis’s office from the case and to prevent prosecutors from pursuing “any further proceedings in this matter,” including indictments, claiming Willis violated “prosecutorial standards” and Trump’s constitutional rights in part by publicly commenting on the case.

“The whole world has watched the process of the [special purpose grand jury] unfold and what they have witnessed was a process that was confusing, flawed and, at times, blatantly unconstitutional,” the 483-page filing reads. “Given the scrutiny and the gravity of the investigation and those individuals involved – namely, the movant President Donald J. Trump – this process should have been handled correctly, fairly, and with deference to the law and the highest ethical standards.”

Jeff DiSantis, a spokesman for Willis, declined to comment. Prosecutors are expected to file a court brief in response in coming days.

The legal missive comes as Trump and his team have signaled a more aggressive strategy toward the various criminal investigations into his conduct. On Saturday, Trump claimed in a social media post that he would be arrested Tuesday as part of a Manhattan district attorney’s investigation.

Advisers to Trump later said they had no knowledge of the specific timing of a potential indictment in that case. But Trump’s messaging came amid growing legal peril, including in Georgia, where Willis is expected to announce in coming weeks whether charges will be filed in that case.

In Monday’s filing, Trump’s Georgia-based legal team — Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg — argued that Georgia state law is “unconstitutionally vague” about the use and scope of a special grand jury, and the “failures in the statutory framework directly impact the fundamental fairness of the proceedings and violate the due process rights of those involved.”

Trump’s lawyers argue the special grand jury “involved a constant lack of clarity to the law” and “inconsistent applications of basic constitutional protections” for those asked to testify before it and those who are believed to be targets of the investigation.

They not only challenge Willis’s handling of the case but also Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury, arguing he violated the rights of witnesses and those party to the investigation by giving improper legal guidance—- including to jurors.

Trump’s attorneys point to media interviews given by Emily Kohrs, the forewoman, and other grand jurors who spoke anonymously last week about witness testimony, evidence and other issues, including why Trump was never summoned to appear before the panel.

Those jurors have suggested they recommended multiple indictments in their final report — though they have not said who is on that list and what laws were violated, citing McBurney’s request to keep deliberations private.

Trump’s legal team argues those public comments about the case from the jurors “violate notions of fundamental fairness and due process and taint any future grand jury pool.” They also say the interviews suggest the grand jury was “improperly supervised or, worse, improperly instructed from the outset.”

“The public cannot have faith in the impartiality of this constitutionally unsound investigation,” Trump’s attorneys write, calling the special grand jury a “tainted investigation” that produced a final report that violates Trump’s due process.

Trump’s lawyers argue Willis should have been disqualified from the investigation early on — pointing to public comments she made about the case as well as social media activity they claim has been biased against Trump.

The filing includes seven pages of citations to nearly 40 media interviews given by Willis, including to The Washington Post, in which they claim she “regularly expressed her personal opinions about the criminality of the acts under investigation thereby suggesting the guilt of those who may be accused.” They claim her comments potentially prejudiced the outcome of the special grand jury, who were allowed to read and watch news coverage about the various Trump investigations.

Willis, a longtime Fulton County prosecutor who was elected district attorney in 2020, launched her investigation into alleged election interference just days after a recording was made public of a January 2021 phone call that Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to “find” enough votes to overturn Trump’s defeat in Georgia.

It was one of several calls Trump and his associates made to Georgia officials prodding them to undertake efforts with the aim of changing the results of the state’s presidential election, which Trump lost by fewer than 12,000 votes.

In the two years since, Willis has indicated publicly and in court filings that her office’s investigation has expanded to include several other lines of inquiry, including false claims of election fraud that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and other Trump associates made to Georgia state lawmakers; threats and harassment targeting Georgia election workers; and the creation of an alternative slate of Republican electoral college electors who met at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020 and signed certificates falsely asserting that Trump had won the state’s race.

Willis and her team are said to be closely examining not only Trump’s phone calls but what knowledge he had and role he played in efforts including the “fake electors.” Willis has indicated she is eyeing Georgia’s expansive anti-racketeering law as she considers whether Trump and his allies conspired to break the law in seeking to overturn the state’s election results.

The special purpose grand jury did not have the power to issue indictments — only recommendations. To charge someone, Willis would have to present her case to a regular grand jury that has the power to issue criminal indictments.

At least 18 people have been notified they are targets of the election interference investigation, according to court documents and statements from their attorneys. That list includes Giuliani and all the alternative Republican electors.

Willis’s office has not said whether Trump is a target, and Trump’s attorneys have not said if he has formally been given notice that he’s a target. But in Monday’s court filing, Trump’s legal team claimed Willis had “intimated” in media interviews that the former president was a target — which they claimed allows them to make due process claims even though he was never called as a witness before the grand jury and no charges have been announced.

“President Trump was inextricably intertwined with this investigation since its inception,” the filing reads. “The efforts under investigation squarely relate to his bid for a second term as president of the United States.”