ATLANTA β After meeting for more than seven months, sifting through mountains of evidence and hearing testimony from dozens of witnesses, the 23 members of the Fulton County special grand jury are expected to soon issue a final report detailing their findings and recommending next steps.
The jurors are tasked with helping Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis determine whether former President Donald Trump or his allies broke any state laws as they sought to overturn Georgiaβs 2020 election results.
Their final report, known as a special presentment, could be finalized within weeks. And while it will ultimately be up to Willis to decide whether anyone should be charged with a crime, the special grand jury has an important role to play in synthesizing its investigation and making any βrecommendations concerning criminal prosecution as it shall see fit,β according to its authorization.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, center, confers with lead prosecutors Donald Wakeford, left, and Nathan Wade during a motion hearing at Fulton County Courthouse on July 1 in Atlanta.
Norm Eisen, who has closely tracked the probe for the Brookings Institution in Washington, is expecting the special presentment will answer three major questions: What happened? Who should be charged? And, if so, with what crimes?
βIβm expecting a narrative of wrongdoing that is Georgia-centered, that focuses on two main lanes of activity,β said Eisen, who served as President Barack Obamaβs ethics czar and special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trumpβs first impeachment.
βFirst, the pressure to produce fake electoral results, highlighted by (Trumpβs call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021), but much more to it. Second, the pressure to produce fake electoral slates.β
Georgia law outlines little about what should and should not be included in the final report.
What is clear is that a majority of jurors must agree on any findings or recommendations to be included in the report.Β
When jurors are done writing their report, theyβll turn it over to Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, whoβs overseeing the grand jury. When McBurney decides the jury has satisfied its obligations, heβll recommend to Chief Judge Ural Glanville that the grand jury be dissolved. Glanville would then report the recommendation to the other Fulton judges and, if a majority agrees, the grand jury will be disbanded.
Only once approved by the Fulton bench would the presentment be turned over to the DAβs office for potential prosecution. But, as the grand juryβs legal adviser, prosecutors are often heavily involved as jurors write their final report.
βUltimately, I would be surprised if (Willis) is not aware of whatβs going to be in that presentment or how itβs going to read,β said former DeKalb DA Robert James, who advised the 2012 special grand jury probing corruption allegations in DeKalbβs water department. βBut do the grand jurors need the DAβs permission? No. Is the DA able to tell them, βI donβt want yβall to put this in there?β No. This is not a product of the DAβs office.β
Some version of the report β or at least portions of it β are expected to be made public at some point, though there could be a delay as McBurney reviews it to see if any redactions or changes are necessary. In DeKalb, the foreman of the 2012 special grand jury ultimately sued the judge overseeing the probe to force him to make the report public, which he did some seven months after it was written.Β
Some special grand jury reports have been kept under seal or redacted because of a 1961 Georgia Court of Appeals decision addressing a special presentment by a Fulton grand jury. In that ruling, the court said a βgrand jury has no right ... to return a report charging or casting reflections of misconduct in office upon a public officer or impugning his character,β except through an indictment.
Willisβs office has faced resistance in recent months from hostile witnesses seeking to kill their subpoenas. James said more challenges could be ahead as people expecting to be named in the special presentment launch eleventh-hour fights to strike their portions of the report or at least delay its release.
βTheyβre not going to just roll over and say, βoh yeah, publish this thing and say what you want to say about me,ββ said James. βSo we havenβt seen the end of the fist fights. As a matter of fact, we probably havenβt seen the worst fist fights yet.β
No targets or witnesses have mounted challenges so far. (Prosecutors previously informed the 16 GOP electors, Trumpβs former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Dallas-based lawyer and podcaster Jacki Pick that they could be charged as a part of the investigation.)
Among those closely watching the presentment is Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneysβ Council of Georgia. His organization has been tasked with deciding what to do next with Lieutenant Gov.-elect Burt Jones, who served as a fake elector and was previously sent a so-called βtargetβ letter but won a legal challenge disqualifying Willis and her office from investigating him.
Skandalakis has indicated heβll wait and see what the presentment includes about the electors before deciding whether to appoint a special prosecutor to look into Jones.
βI would like to read what that report says,β he said. βAnd Iβm sure any prosecutor who comes along in an appointed capacity would also like to know what the special grand jury heard and what they thought was important.β
5 takeaways from the Jan. 6 report
1. Eight chapters
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From the "Big Lie" of Trump's November 2020 election night claims of a stolen election to the bloody Jan. 6, 2021, siege, the report spells out the start and finish of the mob attack that played out for the world to see.
It details how Trump and his allies engaged in a "multi-part" scheme to overturn Joe Biden's presidential election victory β first through court challenges, then, when those failed, by compiling slates of electors to challenge Joe Biden's victory.
As Congress prepared to convene Jan. 6 to certify the election, Trump summoned a mob to Washington for his "Stop the Steal" rally at the White House.
"When Donald Trump pointed them toward the Capitol and told them to 'fight like hell,' that's exactly what they did," Thompson wrote. "Donald Trump lit that fire. But in the weeks beforehand, the kindling he ultimately ignited was amassed in plain sight."
2. New details, pressures
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After blockbuster public hearings, the report and its accompanying materials are providing more detailed accounts of key aspects of the Trump team's plan to overturn the election, join the mob at the Capitol and, once the committee began investigating, pressure those who would testify against him.
Among dozens of new witness transcripts was Thursday's release of a previously unseen account from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson (pictured) detailing a stunning campaign by Trump's allies encouraging her to stay "loyal" as she testified before the panel.
The report said the committee estimates that in the two months between the November election and the Jan. 6 attack, "Trump or his inner circle engaged in at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach, pressure, or condemnation, targeting either State legislators or State or local election administrators, to overturn State election results."
3. Behind the scenes
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The report also details Trump's inaction as his loyalists were violently storming the building.
One Secret Service employee testified to the committee that Trump's determination to go to the Capitol put agents on high alert.
"(We) all knew ... that this was going to move to something else if he physically walked to the Capitol," a unidentified employee said. "I don't know if you want to use the word 'insurrection,' 'coup,' whatever. We all knew that this would move from a normal democratic ... public event into something else."
Once the president arrived back at the White House after delivering a speech to his supporters, he asked an employee if they had seen his remarks on television.
"Sir, they cut it off because they're rioting down at the Capitol," the staffer said, according to the report.
Trump asked what that meant, and was given the same answer. "Oh really?" Trump then asked. "All right, let's go see."
4. Safeguarding democracy
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The report makes 11 recommendations for Congress and others to safeguard American democracy and its tradition of the peaceful transfer of presidential power from one leader to the next.
The first, an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act, is on its way to becoming law in the year-end spending bill heading toward final passage this week in Congress.
The committee also made recommendations to the Justice Department to prosecute Trump and others for conspiracy to commit fraud on the public, and other potential charges. It also referred the former president for prosecution for "assisting and providing aid and comfort to an insurrection."
Other changes may be within reach or prove more elusive. Among them, the report recommends beefing up security around key congressional events, overhauling oversight of the Capitol Police and enhancing federal penalties for certain types of threats against election workers.
One recommendation is for Congress to create a formal mechanism to consider barring individuals from public office if they engage in insurrection or rebellion under the Fourteenth Amendment. It holds that those who have taken an oath to support the Constitution can be disqualified from holding future federal or state office if they back an insurrection.
5. Record for history
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The Jan. 6 committee was created after Congress rebuked an effort to form an independent 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack. Republicans blocked the idea.
Instead, Speaker Nancy Pelosi led the House to form the committee. In her foreword to the report, she said it "must be a clarion call to all Americans: to vigilantly guard our Democracy."
Led by Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the panel's work is intended to stand as a record for history of what happened during the most serious attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812.
Five people died in the riot and its aftermath, including Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot and killed by police, and Brian Sicknick, a police officer who died the day after battling the mob.
Cheney noted the committee decided most of its witnesses needed to be Republicans β the president's own team and allies. In the report's foreword, she wrote that history will remember the "bravery of a handful of Americans" and those who withstood Trump's "corrupt pressure."
For all of them, the committee and report held personal weight.
Thompson, a Black leader in Congress, noted that the iconic U.S. Capitol, built with enslaved labor, "itself is a fixture in our country's history, of both good and bad ... a symbol of our journey toward a more perfect union."
