The Georgia special grand jury investigating the attempt by former President Donald Trump and his associates to overturn the 2020 election results in the state has recommended indictments against more than a dozen individuals on multiple charges in its report, only parts of which have been released, the jury’s forewoman has said.
“It is not a short list,” Emily Kohrs told The New York Times. She said the jury appended eight pages of legal code “that we cited at various points in the report”.
She chose not to comment on whom the grand jury has recommended for indictment as the judge chose to not release that information when publishing parts of the report last week.
“There are certainly names you would recognize,” she later told NBC News.
Ms Kohrs told the paper that seven sections of the report that haven’t been released are about recommendations for indictment.
She was asked if Mr Trump had been recommended for indictment.
“You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science,” she told The Times. “You won’t be too surprised.”
Amidst Mr Trump’s 2024 campaign for the White House, the Georgia probe is viewed as one of the top legal threats against him.
The Department of Justice appointed special counsel Jack Smith in November to be in charge of two federal criminal investigations connected to the former president.
In January, the office of the Manhattan DA started presenting evidence to a grand jury on if Mr Trump made hush money payments during the 2016 campaign to Stormy Daniels, a porn star who alleged they had had an affair.
One of the main issues of the Georgia probe is a 2 January 2021 call that Mr Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, during which he pushed him to “find” 11,780 votes for him – just enough to overcome President Joe Biden’s lead.
“We definitely started with the first phone call, the call to Secretary Raffensperger that was so publicized,” Ms Kohrs told The Times.
The forewoman first spoke to the Associated Press on Tuesday.
“I will tell you that if the judge releases the recommendations, it is not going to be some giant plot twist,” she said. “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 convened for almost seven months, meeting in a courthouse in downtown Atlanta, and hearing testimony from more than 70 witnesses. Mr Trump didn’t appear as a witness, and his legal team has argued that he’s not guilty of any wrongdoing.
The Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis, was in charge of the investigation and will have the final say on who will be charged.
Ms Kohrs told the Associated Press that “the first indication that this was a big freaking deal” came last May when the jury was taken into a garage under the courthouse guarded by heavily armed officers.
In vans with tinted windows and escorted by police, they were driven to their cars.
Ms Kohrs, 30, was between jobs when the grand jury investigation first entered her life.
Parts of its report were published last Thursday and said that the jury believed “one or more witnesses” were guilty of perjury and urged prosecutors to bring charges. The recommendations on charges for other issues remain under wraps.
The AP identified Ms Kohrs after her name was found on subpoenas acquired via record requests.
She told the news agency that Mr Raffensperger was “a really geeky kind of funny” and that State House Speaker David Ralston, who passed away in November, also had jurors laughing.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who managed to delay appearing before the jury until after he had been reelected in November, didn’t seem very pleased to be there.
Ms Kohrs enjoyed hearing from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who spoke more freely than her old boss, Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
She sketched witnesses and managed to save drawings of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Marc Short, the former chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, as those pages didn’t include notes and therefore didn’t have to be destroyed at the conclusion of the proceedings.
Mr Graham was polite when answering questions and joked with the jury despite having taken his case all the way to the Supreme Court to avoid having to appear.
Trump lawyer and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was also funny but invoked privilege to not have to answer questions on many occasions, but Ms Kohrs told the news agency that he “genuinely seemed to consider” if it was merited before he chose not to answer a question.
At least one witness started speaking much more freely after having been offered immunity in front of the jury, Ms Kohrs said.
Ms Kohrs said the jury wanted to hear from the former president but that they didn’t think Mr Trump would have much to add. His lawyers have said he wasn’t asked to appear.
“Trump was not a battle we picked to fight,” she told the AP.
She didn’t vote in 2020 and didn’t know much about the controversies that followed the election. She was unaware of the details of Mr Trump’s claims of fraud and of his attempts to overturn the results. When the call between Mr Trump and Mr Raffensperger was played, it was the first time she listened to it.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Mr Trump said.
While she said she usually agrees more with the Democrats, she doesn’t identify with a party.
“If I chose a political party, it would be the not-crazy party,” she told the AP.
Ms Kohrs, who said she’s a “geek about the justice system,” was unopposed when she volunteered to be the foreperson as the jury tried to balance their responsibilities with their personal lives.
Unlike some other jurors, Ms Kohrs said she mostly didn’t consume news stories about the probe to avoid being affected by outside opinions.
“I didn’t want to characterize anyone before they walked in the room,” she told the AP. “I felt they all deserved an impartial listener.”
There were 26 people on the jury, with a group of between 12 and 16 who showed up consistently for every session.
She remembered only one day when they couldn’t go ahead because not enough members were there – 16 had to be present to proceed.
“We are not meeting up now. We don’t have a group chat,” she said of the group.
She said she didn’t think prosecutors attempted to affect the final report.
“I fully stand by our report as our decision and our conclusion,” told the AP.
Mr Trump himself reacted to the latest news stories about the Georgia investigation with an angry statement insisting on his innocence.
He wrote on his Truth Social network: “This is the real crime that took place in Georgia, with a Racist in Reverse D.A., who presides over the most dangerous city per capita in our Nation (by far!), Atlanta, does nothing but harass me for making two absolutely PERFECT phone calls, and for any other fake reason that the Department of Injustice in D.C. tells her to pursue. They are demanding silence from people from protesting, or even discussing, Election results, because that’s the place they just don’t want to get anywhere near!”
