Prosecutors have spent two years trying to determine whether Trump and his associates committed crimes. (file)
Washington:
A US grand jury probing efforts to reverse 2020 election losses by Donald Trump and his allies in the key state of Georgia has recommended multiple indictments, Fourwoman revealed Tuesday.
In 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 filed indictments against more than a dozen people without naming anyone. Charges were recommended.
“There are some names you’ll recognize, yes,” she told NBC News in a televised interview. “There are also names you may not recognize.”
She told multiple outlets that in the jury’s final report, the result of seven months’ work, the people referenced and the crimes “is not a short list.”
Prosecutors have spent two years looking into whether the former president and his allies committed crimes in their bid to reverse his defeat to Joe Biden in the southern state by less than 12,000 votes.
Known targets include Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani and 16 Republican activists who posed as presidential “voters” 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 for the White House for 2024 – was among those recommended for impeachment.
But she told The New York Times that she was “not going to be surprised” by the jury’s finding. “It’s not rocket science,” she said.
‘No Giant Plot Twist’
Over seven months, the panel took testimony from 75 witnesses, including Trump’s fourth chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Giuliani.
Kohrs later told CNN that Meadows “didn’t share much,” and asserted his constitutional right to speak.
When asked if she had safety concerns about speaking publicly about the hot topic, Kohrs said: “I am aware of my safety, but I am not concerned.”
“I don’t think I should be — I don’t think I … or any member of the jury has done anything that says that we believe about politics in one form or another.”
A Georgia judge allowed the release last week of three redacted sections from the grand jury’s report, which revealed members found no evidence of widespread voter fraud, undercutting Trump’s claim that he was forced into the election. was robbed.
The released sections did not include specific charging recommendations, but did reveal that the jury believed witnesses may have lied under oath.
Kohrs told the Times, “I will tell you that if the judges do issue recommendations, it won’t be some huge plot twist.”
Democratic District Attorney Fannie Willis will make a final charge decision after presenting the panel’s findings to one of the regularly empaneled criminal grand juries in Fulton County, Georgia, a process that may have already begun.
The investigation was touched upon 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.
Kohrs also told CNN that he had heard more about Trump’s recorded call during the process.
The Georgia investigation is one of several probes into alleged criminal actions by the former president and his allies, who are accused of engaging in a multi-stage scheme to cling to power despite Trump losing the election.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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