A Georgia special grand jury has recommended criminal charges in December 2022 against Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and other allies of Donald Trump in an investigation into efforts to overturn the former president’s 2020 election loss, according to a report released on Friday. .

None were ultimately charged when Georgia prosecutors opened a major criminal case against Trump and 18 other alleged accomplices, News.ro cited.

The special grand jury also recommended indictments against Lindsey Graham, a longtime senator who represented South Carolina, and two U.S. senators who represented Georgia at the time, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, the report said. Like Trump, they are all Republicans. The jury also recommended indictments against Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, adviser Boris Epstein and attorneys Lyn Wood and Cleta Mitchell.

It was not clear why Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Willis ultimately decided not to file charges against the six, and her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The six are among 39 people a special grand jury recommended for indictment in its Dec. 15 report, which was sealed for nine months and released only Friday.

The special grand jury did not have the power to issue indictments, but prosecutor Willis used the evidence she gathered to get Trump and his 18 co-defendants indicted by a regular grand jury last month.

Responding to the release of the report on Friday, Trump said it showed that prosecutor Willis’ actions were politically motivated. “They wanted to press charges against anyone who happened to be breathing at that moment,” he wrote on social networks.

Trump and the other defendants in the case have pleaded not guilty. As with the other three criminal trials, Trump has denied any wrongdoing and said he is the victim of political persecution.

Who are the six people who escaped prosecution?

Lindsey Graham, Trump’s former rival turned golf buddy, asked Georgia officials to check mail-in ballots after the Republican president’s defeat. Graham defended his conduct, saying he had the authority to scrutinize the state’s election activity as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He fought a subpoena ordering him to testify, but the U.S. Supreme Court eventually ordered him to do so.

Loeffler and Perdue, both Trump supporters, were defeated by Democratic candidates in the January 2021 election. Perdue ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022. Neither immediately responded to a request for comment.

Flynn also did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump’s former national security adviser, a prominent far-right figure, has called on Trump to use the military to overturn the 2020 election.

A longtime Trump political adviser, Epstein was involved in efforts to overturn Trump’s defeat and has since been advising the former president on the legal threats he now faces. Epstein’s lawyer declined to comment.

Wood, a conservative attorney who promoted the election conspiracy, has pleaded not guilty and said he was surprised to learn that a special grand jury had recommended indictment against him. “I’m not really sure why my name appears in it,” he told Reuters.

Mitchell, another conservative attorney who has worked to reverse Trump’s defeat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Special Grand Jury Decision

A special grand jury convened in 2021 at Willis’ request to assist in the investigation. Over the course of several months, the jury subpoenaed 75 witnesses, including Trump allies such as his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Graham and high-ranking Georgia officials such as Gov. Brian Kemp.

The special grand jury was not unanimous. She voted 13-7, 14-6 and 17-4 to indict Graham, Loeffler and Purdue, respectively. There were one abstention each in the vote for Graham and Leffler. A grand jury voted 20 to 1 to indict Trump in connection with the nationwide effort to nullify the election.

The indictment lists 30 other people suspected of involvement in the conspiracy who have not been charged but who allegedly played a role in the scheme.

Despite his legal troubles, Trump remains the Republican front-runner in next year’s presidential election, where he will compete against incumbent Joe Biden.

The special grand jury report was kept secret at Willis’ request while she determined what charges to file. After the charges were filed, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled there was no longer a reason not to release it. (takeover of News.ro.)