A special purpose grand jury convened in Georgia recommended a slew of additional indictments that went beyond those sought last month by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
According to the grand jury’s report, made public Friday, the panel believed multiple others should be criminally charged for plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both Republicans from Georgia.
They were not ultimately indicted. The panel had significant disagreements about some individuals; the vote to recommend a racketeering-related indictment for Graham broke down to 13 yeas, 7 nays and 1 abstention. For Perdue, the vote broke down to 17 yeas and 4 nays. For Loeffler, there were 14 yeas, 6 nays and 1 abstention.
Willis’ exact reasons for seeking the indictments she did are not entirely clear. Flynn was not indicted on racketeering even though the panel overwhelmingly signaled that he should be in a vote of 20 yeas to 1 nay. Trump-allied attorneys Boris Epshteyn and Cleta Mitchell received the same 20-to-1 vote on the alleged conspiracy but were not ultimately indicted, either.
The panel also considered the roles of several additional “alternate” electors but split almost evenly on whether they should be indicted for racketeering.
The special purpose grand jury did not have the power to indict anyone. Rather, the panel sat for around six months last year to consider potential charges, hearing evidence from 75 witnesses, most of whom were under oath. They wrapped up their work by compiling a final report in January.
Willis then convened a regular grand jury this summer to secure the indictments, which were returned in August and matched many of the recommendations the earlier panel had made.
Former President Donald Trump was hit with criminal charges in Georgia along with his former attorneys Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro and a number of other allies, such as former chief of staff Mark Meadows. All 19 of the defendants pleaded not guilty.
While the court is still wading through pretrial motions, at least two of the defendants — Chesebro and Powell — are scheduled to begin trial Oct. 23.