CNN: Grand jury urges perjury charges against witnesses in Trump investigation

A judge in Fulton County, Georgia, has made public some parts of a report from a special grand jury that investigated Donald Trump’s actions after the 2020 election in the state. The special grand jury recommended that the Fulton County district attorney consider indicting some witnesses for perjury. #CNN #News

Transcript

Sarah. What are you seeing so far? That’s right, Kate. You know, essentially what we have gotten here is only a couple of pages from the report. You know, as they were just saying, the judge is holding a lot of this back, including the recommendations on whether anyone should be charged with certain c

But the one section they did release is frankly just a paragr on the grand jury’s belief that lied before them. In this paragraph, they recommend that the Fulton County District Fani Willis, consider indicting some of these witnesses for perj So this section of the report says the grand jury recommends

That the district attorney seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling So this kind of gives you a sens of the tone of the grand jury, the belief that there were witne that came before them, that lied under oath and their suggestion to the district attorney,

Because ultimately up to her whether she’s going to personally indictments, that there may be indictments worth pursuing when it comes to this perjury qu Now, again, we’re not seeing what their broader recommendatio We’re not seeing the names of wi that they believed may have lied But that’s important. You know, they also wrote

In this report that they believe unanimously that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election in Georgia that could have upended the resu Obviously, a lot of people around the forme president, the former president, have contended that there was fr despite the lack of evidence the And they point out

That they heard from some witnesses who were still adamant that there was this kind of frau in the 20, 20 election Kate. Interesting. Sara, stick with me, if you will because Patricia this question and this paragraph I’ve got a hard copy of Sarah’s perfectly describing the very limited amount that’s coming forward.

And it says that the grand major of the grand jury believes that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying bef And I know that you were thinkin kind of going into this, this could be one of the most interesting parts of what could coming out.

What do you think it’s going to? What do you think it means? There have no names. We’re not getting any names here Obviously, Well, first of all, it lets us know that this process is going forwa It looks like if there’s been this recommendat that’s certainly something that Fanny Willis

Will take very seriously. And that’s an entire bucket of potential charges above and beyond other recommend that may have been made by this special grand jury. But something that Michael Moore so true it’s so important. There is no playbook for what we are seeing here. There has never been a president

Indicted on criminal charges bef We certainly have never had this kind of finding that there was no widespread fraud, followed by these layers and layers and layers of actions by a former president and his as And when you look at the list of witnesses who wen this grand jury, the governor,

The secretary of state, multiple state lawmakers, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchison, his own assistant up there in the White we start to get a glimpse of just how broad and serious the situation is. Some of those witnesses were there to say, I don’t think anything happened

And I don’t believe there was fr And here’s what else I know. Others were named as targets in in this investigation. As well. And when funny was asked that this report be kept mostly under wraps, which is is that exactly what we’re seeing here today? She said she wanted to protect t

Process rights of potential future defendants. And I think we are starting to s that we are going to expect future defendants in this situat More than likely. Michael, what do you think about I think she’s exactly right. I don’t think there’s any questi that we’re going to see indictme

Come out of this investigation. I think that the D.A. wouldn’t have had the time and treasure invested into the c to be at this place. Now, whether or not she decides to proceed on the perjury charges. I mean, I think that’s an intere way to go. I think that might be

But it strikes me that she’s probably going to really take these recommendat take the testimony that she’s go And she probably bolstered up the evidence that she needed to surrounded that call that Trump made to the secretary of state or at the time looking for those And I think at that point

Now she’s going to move forward. So I don’t know how broad the net w But, you know, we do have key pl she has subpoenaed. And I think you’re going to have who both may have told half trut and complete falsehoods when they testified and gave testimony before the General Assembly

Committees that were looking int And you may also have people who made false statements or the grand jury at least believe made false statements to them. And so that that compounds the investigation So again, whether she looks at a few potential targets or the key players or she just try to indict the

The quarterback, or does she go down and try to indict the whole team I don’t know how deep she’ll go. She’s got to be thinking, though you know, I need to both be able to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, which would be the criminal stan And if I get a conviction,

If a court lets me move forward based on all the motions that we’re going to see if I get a conviction, can I support that conviction on appeal in this state? And she’s weigh in those things out at the same So hopefully, you know her comments about the indictments being imminent

Or decisions being imminent. We’ll see those in relatively short order. Yeah, they feel more imminent today as portions of this or now are now being released. That’s f Sara, you have some more reporti What are you hearing? Well, yeah, you know, I think, you know, as everyone is just talking

About a lot of the tone that we’ve heard from the district attorney, from the judge in this case, the sort of tone we’re getting f very limited amount of informati from the special grand juries report suggests that indictments are likely. And I think, you know, a lot of what

All of this just points to how m deference there is being given to the district attorney in this If you look at the conclusion ag which was one of the portions of this released, the special grand jury, make sure that they want to poin that if they fail to include any violations,

They say we acknowledge the disc of the district attorney to seek indictments where she finds sufficient cause So essentially what they’re saying here is, you know, in the portions that we are not seeing, but that they have written, we’ve made a number of recommendations of who, if anyone should face criminal c

But they’re saying in this conclusion, look, if there’s anything we missed, we are not legal experts. If there was something we missed in the statute, if there was some crime that was committed, that somehow evaded us during this investigation. But where the district attorney there is enough evidence to pursue another indictment.

We defer to her. She should go forward and do thi So I think, you know, that’s just sort of setting up the landscape for as we move forward, what will the district attorney And how closely will it align to what the special grand jury has recommended? And so this may speak

To kind of one thing that I know everyone was looking when this came out, which was what is the kind of overall tone of the parts of the report that were released, since we know so much is going t was going to be and clearly is being held back.

Is that kind of the takeaway tha so far as just like this amount of defe I also do you pointed to and I just want to make sure, you know, for the statement of history, Sara, what you said is that in t I think this is from the opening

Of the grand jury report where they lay out very clearly that the grand jury heard extensive testimony on the subje of alleged election fraud from poll workers. Investigators technical experts and state of Georgia employees and officials, as well as some persons still cl that such fraud took place.

And we find by a unanimous vote that no such that no widespread took place in Georgia in the Georgia 20, 20 presidential election that could result in overturning the election. I mean, it’s an important statem just for historical purposes. Sa It is an important statement. And I think, you know,

What you’re seeing here is we may not be getting the juiciest parts right. What everyone really wants to se is what this special grand jury recommen as far as who, if anyone, should face crimes and on what basis. But what we are getting here is sort of an outline

Of how they approached this, how seriously they undertook thi They lay out, you know, we heard from 75 witnesses. We heard from people who are technical experts in thi We heard from people who still want to make the inaccurate claim that there was this widespread f And we have reached what, you kn

The special grand jury believes is this undeniable conclusion that there was no widespread fra in the 2020 election, regardless of what the former pr may be saying about this, regardless of what a number of his allies may be saying about this. And I think in that introduction they’re really laying out for th

You know, we did our homework he This was not a surface level investigation. This was a deep dove with a number of witnesses all across the spectrum of election administration and as well as these public offi to reach this conclusion. And then again, in the conclusio you get that deference to the D.

This notion that ultimately it’s going to be to Fanny Willis to decide who she really believes she can make the case against. Is it everyone they may have rec in this special grand jury repor Is it fewer than that or could it potentially go even further than this grand jury recommended?

Michael, what do you think about Well, I think that this basically and if you if you think about it, sort of a one sentence report. This is basically the grand jury go get them, Madam District Atto We’ve looked at the evidence. We’ve heard from the witnesses. And we think that there’s

There’s room for a case. So go go get them. And that’s it sounds like they’re given com deference to her and to that dec So remember that this this grand jury does not have the power of the power to indict She has to now present that to a criminal grand jury

Who can basically take the summary of the report and consider the witness testimo the statements that were made. They’re not bound either by the special grand jury report But this is basically an affirma for for the district attorney that the investigation should move forward. Now, again, she she looks at it

Both from the facts and the law. And she’ll have to take into consideration the court. She might be in the you know wha The jury pool is going to look a these things that will have to go into her de that mean that she doesn’t enforce the law or move forward on

Matters brought before. But she has to think about these especially in a case of this magnitude, because we are in historical wat And so I think she should be doing all It has been doing it, frankly, over the last couple of years.

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