A special grand jury that investigated election interference by former President Donald Trump and his allies in Georgia recommended indictments of multiple people on a range of charges in its report, most of which remains sealed, the forewoman of the jury said in an interview Tuesday.
“It is not a short list,” forewoman Emily Kohrs said, adding that the jury had appended eight pages of legal code “that we cited at various points in the report.”
She declined to discuss who specifically the special grand jury recommended for indictment, since the judge handling the case decided to keep those details secret when he made public a few sections of the report last week. But seven sections still under wraps deal with indictment recommendations, Kohrs said.
Asked whether the jurors had recommended indicting Trump, Kohrs gave a cryptic answer: “You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science,” adding “you won’t be too surprised.”
The investigation in Atlanta has been seen as one of the most significant legal threats to Trump as he begins another run for the presidency. In November, the Justice Department named a special counsel, Jack Smith, to oversee two Trump-related criminal investigations. And last month, the Manhattan district attorney’s office began presenting evidence to a grand jury on whether Trump paid hush money to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign, laying the groundwork for potential criminal charges against the former president in the coming months.
A focal point of the Atlanta inquiry is a call that Trump made on Jan. 2, 2021, to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which he pressed Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to recalculate the results and “find 11,780 votes,” or enough to overturn his loss in the state.
“We definitely started with the first phone call, the call to Secretary Raffensperger that was so publicized,” said Kohrs, whom The Associated Press first named and spoke with on Tuesday about the election meddling investigation.
“I will tell you that if the judge releases the recommendations, it is not going to be some giant plot twist,” she added. “You probably have a fair idea of what may be in there. I’m trying very hard to say that delicately.”
The special grand jury met for nearly seven months in a courthouse in downtown Atlanta and heard testimony from 75 witnesses. Trump was not among them, and his lawyers have said he did nothing wrong.
On the first day, the jurors were led down a staircase into a garage beneath a downtown Atlanta courthouse, where officers with big guns were waiting. From there, they were ushered into vans with heavily tinted windows and driven to their cars under police escort.
For Kohrs, these were the moments last May when she realized she wasn’t participating in just any grand jury.
“That was the first indication that this was a big freaking deal,” Kohrs told The Associated Press.
The 30-year-old Fulton County resident who was between jobs suddenly found herself at the center of one of the nation’s most significant legal proceedings. She would become foreperson of the special grand jury selected to investigate whether Trump and his Republican associates illegally meddled in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. The case has emerged as one of Trump’s most glaring legal vulnerabilities as he mounts a third presidential campaign, in part because he was recorded asking state election officials to “find 11,780 votes” for him.
For the next eight months, Kohrs and her fellow jurors would hear testimony from 75 witnesses, ranging from some of Trump’s most prominent allies to local election workers. Portions of the panel’s final report released Thursday said jurors believed that “one or more witnesses” committed perjury and urged local prosecutors to bring charges. The report’s recommendations for charges on other issues, including potential attempts to influence the election, remain secret for now.
Special grand juries in Georgia do not have indictment powers; the ultimate charging decisions will be up to Fani T. Willis, district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, who has led the investigation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.