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      Takeaways From the Report on the Trump Georgia Investigation

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      The released excerpts from the special grand jury’s report suggest that the jurors probably recommended indictments on more charges than just perjury.On Thursday, after a lengthy criminal investigation by a Georgia special grand jury into allegations of election interference by Donald J. Trump and his allies, a judge released excerpts from a report drafted by the panel. The grand jury’s recommendations were redacted, and little new information was released, but a close reading, together with earlier reporting, offers some insights into where the case is headed. Here are some key takeaways.Legal experts say Mr. Trump remains in real jeopardy in Georgia.In a post on Truth Social on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Trump thanked the special grand jury for its “Patriotism & Courage.“Total exoneration,” he added. “The USA is very proud of you!!!”In fact, the portions of the grand jury’s report that included recommendations on possible indictments were not revealed. Many legal experts continue to see two significant areas of exposure for Mr. Trump.The first is his direct involvement in recruiting a slate of alternative presidential electors after the 2020 election, even after Georgia’s results were recertified by the state’s Republican leadership. The second are the telephone calls he made to pressure state officials after the election, including one in which Mr. Trump told Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, that he needed to “find” 11,780 votes, one more than President Biden’s margin of victory in the state.“Even before we got these initial statements from the special grand jury, we knew Trump was in deep criminal peril because of the mountain of evidence that has accumulated that he violated Georgia statutes,” said Norman Eisen, a lawyer who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment and trial of Mr. Trump, and a co-author of a lengthy Brookings Institution report on the Fulton County investigation.The jurors did make recommendations about indictments.The special grand jury noted in its report that it had voted on indictment recommendations, though the released excerpts do not reveal what the results of those votes were. The jurors wrote that they had “set forth for the Court our recommendations on indictments and relevant statutes.” (A special grand jury cannot bring indictments, but can make recommendations to the district attorney.)In ordering that only portions of the report be released, with all names redacted, the judge handling the case may have provided a clue to the grand jury’s recommendations. The judge, Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court, said he was limiting the extent of the release because the grand jury inquiry, by its nature, allowed for only “very limited due process” for potential defendants. The judge’s stance would have been unlikely if the grand jury had not recommended indictments.Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5A legal threat to Trump. More

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      Here’s a Timeline of the Trump Georgia Investigation

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      The criminal investigation of former President Donald J. Trump and his allies in Georgia has its roots in activities that began shortly after he lost the 2020 election. So far, there have been two key investigatory threads: a plan to send an alternate slate of electors from states that Mr. Trump lost, including Georgia, and Mr. Trump’s request that Georgia’s secretary of state find the votes he needed to flip the state’s 16 electoral votes to him instead of Joseph R. Biden Jr.Here’s a look at some of the key events connected to the investigation.Nov. 18, 2020: Just over two weeks after Election Day, an outside adviser to the Trump campaign, Kenneth Chesebro, sends the first of three memos laying the groundwork for using the Electoral College system to affect the outcome of the race.Dec. 5: Mr. Trump calls Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, and urges him to circumvent the normal process for awarding electoral votes and allow Georgia’s lawmakers to do it instead.Dec. 6: Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, shares one of those memos with Jason Miller, a senior adviser on the Trump campaign. In the next few days, Mr. Trump decides to pursue the plan to offer alternate electors, according to the findings of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.Dec. 7: Georgia elections officials recertified the results of the state’s presidential race after a recount reaffirmed Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory over President Trump, the third time that results showed that Mr. Trump had lost the state.Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5A legal threat to Trump. More

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      Georgia Judge Will Release Parts of Report on Trump Election Inquiry

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      Releasing the introduction and conclusion of a special grand jury report could shed light on the extent to which Mr. Trump and others might face legal jeopardy in the case.ATLANTA — A Georgia judge said on Monday that he would disclose parts of a grand jury report later this week that details an investigation into election interference by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies, though he would keep the jury’s specific recommendations secret for now.In making his ruling, the judge, Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court, said the special grand jury raised concerns in its report “that some witnesses may have lied under oath during their testimony.” But the eight-page ruling included few other revelations about the report, the contents of which have been carefully guarded, with the only physical copy in the possession of the district attorney’s office.The ruling does, however, indicate that the special grand jury’s findings are serious. The report includes “a roster of who should (or should not) be indicted, and for what, in relation to the conduct (and aftermath) of the 2020 general election in Georgia,” Judge McBurney wrote.For the last two years, prosecutors in Atlanta have been conducting a criminal investigation into whether Mr. Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, which he narrowly lost to President Biden. Much of the inquiry — including interviewing dozens of witnesses — was conducted before the special grand jury, which under Georgia law had to issue a final report on its findings, which in this case includes charging recommendations. Special grand juries do not have the power to issue indictments.It will be up to Fani T. Willis, the local district attorney, to decide what, if any, charges she will bring to a regular grand jury.Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5A legal threat to Trump. More

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      Special Grand Jury in Georgia Trump Inquiry Concludes Its Investigation

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      A hearing will be held to determine whether the report will be made public. Any criminal charges would have to be brought by a regular grand jury.ATLANTA — Eight weeks into Donald J. Trump’s latest run for president, a special grand jury investigating Mr. Trump and his allies for possible election interference in 2020 concluded its work on Monday. But the panel’s findings remain private for now, including whether it recommended criminal charges against the former president.The special grand jury was dissolved days after producing a report that was reviewed by the 20 judges on the Superior Court of Fulton County, which encompasses most of Atlanta. Its members were sworn in last May.“The court thanks the grand jurors for their dedication, professionalism and significant commitment of time and attention to this important matter,” Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the panel, wrote in an order dissolving it.A hearing will be held on Jan. 24 to determine whether the report will be made public, as the special grand jury is recommending, according to the judge’s order. Special grand juries cannot issue indictments, so any criminal charges would have to be sought from one of the regular grand juries that consider criminal matters in the county.Regular grand jury terms last two months. Defendants who are indicted can request speedy trials that begin by the close of the term that follows the two-month period in which they are indicted. Because of those protocols, most charges would most likely be brought at the beginning of the next grand jury term in early March, or further down the road.Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5An immediate legal threat to Trump. More

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      Mark Meadows Ordered to Testify in Georgia Election Investigation

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      Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, has been fighting to avoid testifying about efforts to keep former President Donald J. Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.PICKENS, S.C. — Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff who was deeply involved in efforts to keep former President Donald J. Trump in power after the 2020 election, was ordered on Wednesday to travel to Atlanta to testify in a criminal investigation into election meddling.Mr. Meadows, 63, has been fighting to avoid appearing before a special grand jury that has been investigating election interference in Georgia by Mr. Trump and his allies. The inquiry is being led by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga.Mr. Meadows’s lawyer, James Bannister, said he would appeal the decision. He is employing a legal strategy that has been used in Texas, the home of three witnesses who were summoned by Fulton County but have not appeared. After a legal challenge by one of the three witnesses, a majority of judges on Texas’ Court of Criminal Appeals expressed the view that the Georgia grand jury was not a proper criminal grand jury because it lacked indictment authority, and thus probably lacked standing to compel the appearance of witnesses from Texas.The strategy could have implications for a number of out-of-state witnesses whose testimony is still being sought by the special grand jury, including Michael Flynn and Newt Gingrich, a native Georgian who now lives in Virginia — not to mention Mr. Trump, if his testimony is sought by Ms. Willis’s office. However, the district attorney could elect to conduct depositions of witnesses in their home states if their local courts refuse to produce them.Mr. Meadows, a South Carolina resident, did not appear at the hearing Wednesday morning. In court, Mr. Bannister tried to persuade Circuit Court Judge Edward W. Miller that the special grand jury in Georgia was not criminal in nature.But the South Carolina judge noted that the judge in Fulton County, Robert C.I. McBurney, who is overseeing the Atlanta proceeding, had considered the question, and recently ruled that the special grand jury was indeed criminal in nature. More

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      Brian Kemp Must Testify in Trump Inquiry After Election

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      ATLANTA — A judge ruled on Monday that Gov. Brian P. Kemp of Georgia must appear before a special grand jury investigating election interference by former President Donald J. Trump, but will not be compelled to do so until after the Nov. 8 election.Mr. Kemp, who is running for a second term this year, is one of a number of high-profile Republicans who have been fighting subpoenas that call upon them to testify in the sprawling case. Unlike many of those other Republicans, Mr. Kemp does not appear to have been involved in efforts after the November 2020 election to overturn Mr. Trump’s election loss in Georgia.Indeed, Mr. Kemp resisted a personal entreaty from Mr. Trump, in December 2020, to convene the state Legislature in order to appoint pro-Trump electors from Georgia, even though Joseph R. Biden, a Democrat, had won the popular vote in the state.Nevertheless, Mr. Kemp’s lawyers in recent days have tried to persuade Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court that under Georgia law, the sitting governor should not be subject to subpoenas. They argued, among other things, that the governor was protected by the doctrine of sovereign immunity, and that the subpoena had been issued “for improper political purposes” because his presence was being demanded before the November 2022 election. The investigation is being overseen by a Democrat, District Attorney Fani T. Willis of Fulton County, which encompasses most of Atlanta.In a prepared statement on Monday, a spokesperson for Mr. Kemp said the court had “correctly paused” his testimony until after the election, saying the governor’s office would work “to ensure a full accounting of the governor’s limited role in the issues being investigated is available to the special grand jury.”Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationCard 1 of 5Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationAn immediate legal threat to Trump. More

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      Georgia Governor Seeks to Keep Distance From Trump Inquiry

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      ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp was one of the Georgia Republican officials who declined to help Donald J. Trump overturn his 2020 election loss in the state — a decision that had him hailed as a hero in some quarters.And yet, on Thursday, Mr. Kemp’s lawyers showed up in an Atlanta courtroom to argue that the governor should not have to help with the ongoing criminal investigation into election meddling by testifying before a special grand jury. Mr. Kemp’s legal team has accused Fani T. Willis, a Democrat and the local prosecutor leading the inquiry, of politicizing the investigation, and wants any testimony to take place after the polls close on his re-election bid in November.In a sign of how widely her case is expanding, Ms. Willis also moved on Thursday to compel testimony from a number of additional Trump advisers, including Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff in the White House, and Sidney Powell, a lawyer who advanced the most aggressive conspiracy theories falsely claiming that the 2020 election was stolen. And Ms. Willis indicated in court filings that her investigation now encompasses “an alleged breach of elections data” in rural Coffee County, Ga., which was part of a larger effort by Trump allies to infiltrate elections systems in swing states.In court, the lawyers for Mr. Kemp made a number of arguments as to why he should not have to comply with the subpoena at all, but they were received skeptically by Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court, who did not immediately make a ruling.“The governor doesn’t think he’s beyond any reach of law, but he’s just beyond the reach of this particular subpoena,” said S. Derek Bauer, one of Mr. Kemp’s lawyers.Mr. Kemp, who is locked in a tight race for re-election with Stacey Abrams, a Democrat, has tried to maintain a difficult balancing act since falling out of Mr. Trump’s good graces. The former president soured on Mr. Kemp in 2020 after the governor declined Mr. Trump’s request to call a special session of the Georgia Legislature so that a group of pro-Trump electors could be named in place of the legitimate ones earned by Joseph R. Biden Jr., who defeated Mr. Trump by just under 12,000 votes in the state.Jenna Ellis, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, was scheduled to testify before the grand jury in Atlanta on Thursday.Tom Williams/Getty ImagesAt one point, Mr. Trump called Mr. Kemp “the worst ‘election integrity’ governor in the country.”Since then, even as his name elicited torrents of boos from the Trump faithful at rallies and Republican events, Mr. Kemp has found a way to stay alive politically. In May, he crushed Mr. Trump’s handpicked Republican primary candidate, David Perdue, the former U.S. senator, by focusing on his record of conservative policy accomplishments and economic success, and largely avoiding the topic of Mr. Trump.But the general election fight presents its own complex series of calculations. Though polling in recent months has shown Mr. Kemp leading Ms. Abrams, she is a formidable fund-raiser hoping to ride a wave of changing demographics and fresh concerns about Republican overreach on issues like abortion.Charles S. Bullock III, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, said Mr. Kemp might be wary of turning off some centrist voters, but the deeper risk could be turning off Mr. Trump’s considerable base in Georgia.Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationCard 1 of 5Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationAn immediate legal threat to Trump. More

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      Judge Criticizes Georgia Prosecutor for Aiding the Political Rival of a Trump Ally

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      Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Atlanta, is leading an investigation into election interference by Donald J. Trump. A Republican targeted by her inquiry wants her disqualified.ATLANTA — A Georgia judge on Thursday criticized the Atlanta prosecutor leading an investigation into election interference by Donald J. Trump and his allies, calling her decision to host a fund-raiser for a political rival of one of the targets of her inquiry a “what-are-you-thinking moment.”But the judge, Robert C. I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court, did not rule on a motion to disqualify the prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, and he also denied a motion to quash subpoenas sent to 11 bogus electors who filed paperwork falsely claiming that Mr. Trump won the 2020 election.A lawyer for one Trump elector, State Senator Burt Jones, argued that Ms. Willis should be disqualified from the case, or at least from his part of the case, because she hosted a fund-raiser for Charlie Bailey, a Democrat running against Mr. Jones to be Georgia’s next lieutenant governor.“Find somebody who doesn’t have a dog in the hunt,” the lawyer, William D. Dillon, said during the court proceedings. “Fani Willis has a dog in the hunt.”A lawyer representing Ms. Willis’s office, Anna Green Cross, pointed out that the fund-raiser was “very clearly identified” in a flier as pertaining to a runoff election in the Democratic primary, not the general election matchup against Mr. Jones.But the judge was clearly troubled by it. “The optics are horrific,” he said, adding that it created at least an appearance problem. “If we are at a cocktail party and people are asking, ‘Do you think that this is a fair and balanced approach to things?’” he said, and continued, “Well, how do you explain this?” He also expressed concern that the district attorney, as “the legal adviser to the grand jury,” was “on national media almost nightly talking about this investigation.”Criticism aside, efforts to remove prosecutors have been tried, unsuccessfully, in other Trump-related cases. Late last year, lawyers for Mr. Trump filed a federal lawsuit seeking to halt an inquiry by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, arguing that her public criticism of Mr. Trump had violated several of his constitutional rights, including those to free speech and due process. That suit was dismissed in May. Judge McBurney told a lawyer for several of the pro-Trump electors, Holly Pierson, “you’re not asking, I hope, that we have to have a Republican district attorney investigate this, because that’s the only way it will be fair?”Ms. Pierson said she was not.The legal maneuvers come as Ms. Willis’s investigation has been intensifying and has emerged as the inquiry that puts Mr. Trump and some of his allies in perhaps the most immediate criminal jeopardy.In recent weeks, Ms. Willis has sought to compel testimony from a number of Mr. Trump’s lawyers and advisers, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, Senator Lindsey Graham and John Eastman. She has also informed at least 17 people connected to the case that they are targets who may be charged. Her office has said that it is weighing a range of charges, including conspiracy and racketeering, and that a special grand jury has been meeting for weeks in Atlanta to hear testimony and review documents and videos that may shed light on the multipronged effort to put Georgia in Mr. Trump’s win column.Judge McBurney also said on Thursday that if the grand jury’s report was ready near the November election, he would keep it sealed until afterward.Richard Fausset contributed reporting from Atlanta. More