Defendant in election interference case wants special grand jury report released

ATLANTA — One of the defendants in the investigation into possible election interference in the 2020 election here in Georgia has filed a motion to have the report from a special grand jury released.

Kenneth Chesebro is one of the 19 people indicted by a Fulton County grand jury, charged with allegation that he and others, including former President Donald Trump, colluded to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

[TIMELINE: Fulton County grand jury investigation into potential interference in Georgia elections]

To help decide whether the case should be presented to a grand jury for criminal charges, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis empaneled a special purpose grand jury to investigate the case. After 8 months of testimony, the grand jury delivered its report in January, but the full report has never been released.

A judge allowed a small portion of the report to be made public.

“We find by a unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 election that could result in overturning that election,” the report said.

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Also, a majority of the jurors believed perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses and recommended Willis seek appropriate indictments.

Attorneys for Chesebro now want the report to be released.

“Based on court filings and media reporting, numerous witnesses were subpoenaed to testify before the SPGJ, and in fact did testify,” the court filing said. Mr. Chesebro anticipates that many of these same people will testify at his trial. Therefore, any recordings, transcripts and SPGJ reports are critical for Mr. Chesebro to obtain in order to properly prepare for trial.”

Attorneys for Chesebro also filed another motion on Monday saying they wanted to talk to the grand jurors in the Georgia election interference case.

“In order to ensure the preservation of Mr. Chesebro’s right to due process, as well as his right to be charged only on the basis of an indictment returned by a properly constituted grand jury, his counsel seek to determine, through voluntary interviews of the grand jurors, whether the grand jurors actually read the entire indictment or, alternatively, whether it was merely summarized for them,” the filing said.

So far, no ruling has been made on either motion.

RELATED NEWS:

Trump chief of staff, Mark Meadows, takes the stand asking judge to move case to federal court Meadows insists everything he did was as a federal employee and therefore the case should be heard in federal court.

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