Grand jury in Georgia’s Trump 2020 election investigation finishes work

The special grand jury convened by prosecutors in Atlanta to investigate whether Donald Trump committed crimes in his effort to reverse his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden in Georgia has finished its work.

Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney, who was overseeing the panel, issued an order on Monday that dissolved the special grand jury, after it completed a final report on its inquiries.

The decision whether to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury will be up to the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis.

Over the course of about six months, the special grand jury has heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, including numerous close Trump associates and assorted high-ranking Georgia state officials.

The case is among several around the country that threaten legal peril for the former president as he seeks a second term in 2024.

Special grand juries in Georgia cannot issue indictments but instead can issue a final report recommending actions to be taken.

On 3 January 2021, Trump, the then US president, pressured the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in a phone call to "find" enough votes from the state's electorate to overturn then president-elect Joe Biden's victory there that Trump had refused to concede.

The call was recorded and released and sparked widespread outrage, including calls for a second impeachment. That did not happen but Trump ended up confronted with a historic second impeachment for inciting the insurrection three days later, where his supporters broke into the US Capitol in Washington to try to stop the official congressional certification of Biden winning the presidency from Trump.

After news of the call with Raffensberger broke, Bob Bauer, then a senior Biden adviser, said: "We now have irrefutable proof of a president pressuring and threatening an official of his own party to get him to rescind a state's lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place."

Georgia law says that grand juries are "authorized to recommend to the court the publication of the whole or any part of their general presentments" and that the judge must follow that recommendation. The special grand jury voted to recommend that its report be published.

There will be a hearing on 24 January on whether to publish the special grand jury's report and the district attorney's office and news outlets will be given a chance to make arguments.

Willis opened the investigation in early 2021. Willis is focusing on several different areas: phone calls made to Georgia officials by Trump and his allies; false statements made by Trump associates before Georgia legislative committees; a panel of 16 Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state's "duly elected and qualified" electors; the abrupt resignation of the federal prosecutor in Atlanta in January 2021; alleged attempts to pressure a Fulton county election worker; and breaches of election equipment in a rural south Georgia county.

Lawyers for Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney, confirmed before he was questioned by the special grand jury in August that they were told he faces possible criminal charges. The 16 Republican fake electors have also been told they are targets of the investigation, according to public court filings.

Trump and his allies have consistently denied any wrongdoing. The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, former chief of staff to Trump Mark Meadows and Georgia's governor, Brian Kemp, also all testified before the grand jury.

It is unclear if Trump himself could face charges based on what the jurors determine.

It is far from the only investigation into Trump. The Department of Justice is examining election interference that as well as Trump's role in the Capitol attack, and both cases have been handed to special prosecutor Jack Smith.

Smith is also expected to decided whether to bring charges against Trump and others over the government secrets discovered at the former president's Mar-a-Lago resort.