Fulton County grand jury recommended charges against Lindsey Graham, Georgia senators

A Fulton County, Ga., grand jury suggested charges for a more sweeping group of allies of former President Trump — including three U.S. senators — as it evaluated charging recommendations for those involved with election interference after he lost the 2020 contest.

Included among the list of recommended indictments were two former senators from Georgia who ran for reelection in 2020, former Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, as well as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Georgia Lt. Gov Burt Jones.

The report, released in full Friday after a failed effort from Trump to bar its sharing, details the May charging recommendations from a group of 22 jurors tasked with hearing evidence in the case.

After the report was partially released in February, the foreperson of the grand jury made news by suggesting it would include few surprises.

The 28-page report in many ways aligns with the indictment filed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D), who brought charges against Trump and 18 co-defendants.

But it includes some notable deviations, including recommending charges for Trump-aligned attorney Cleta Mitchell and for Michael Flynn, who briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser. Neither was ultimately included in the August indictment.

The grand jury also recommended charges for Boris Epshteyn, a longtime aide to Trump, who was not charged by Willis but is listed as a not yet indicted co-conspirator in the federal Jan. 6 case.

The report also reveals that many of the indictment recommendations weren’t unanimous, particularly when it came to deciding what charges the fake electors should face. 

One dissenting vote was recorded for each of Trump’s recommendations. Willis ultimately filed some, but not all, of the recommended charges against Trump. She also brought charges against him in connection with the fake elector scheme that were not recommended by the jurors.

Trump on his social media site Friday dismissed the report as having “ZERO credibility.”

“Essentially, they wanted to indict anybody who happened to be breathing at the time. It totally undermines the credibility of the findings, and badly hurts the Great State of Georgia, whose wonderful and patriotic people are not happy with this charade,” he wrote.

Graham, Loeffler, Perdue and Flynn all faced recommended charges “with respect to the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.”

Thirteen grand jurors voted to recommend indicting Graham, while seven voted no and one abstained. They voted 17-4 to recommend indicting Perdue and 14-6 for Loeffler.

“One of the dissenting jurors voting against recommending seeking indictments of former Senators Perdue and Loeffler on a RICO claim believes that their statements following the November 2020 election, while pandering to their political base, do not give rise to their being guilty of a criminal conspiracy,” the report states.

With a 16-1 vote, the grand jury overall recommended Perdue also be indicted as part of the “persistent, repeated communications directed to multiple Georgia officials and employees” between November 2020 and January 2021.

Graham, who gave testimony before the grand jury, only appeared after ordered by courts to do so in a legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

Speaking with reporters Friday, Graham said he was “totally surprised” to have been included among the recommendations.

“I guess I thought I made it pretty clear that my phone call was to find out what I should be doing as a senator. I never suggested anybody set aside the election. I never said go find votes,” he said.

“The next election, if I have questions, I’ll do the same thing.” 

Jones, then a state senator, also faced recommended charges for being part of the national effort as well as the broader false elector scheme. Willis, however, was barred from indicting Jones after a judge found she had a conflict of interest because she hosted a fundraiser for Jones’s opponent as he was running for lieutenant governor. 

The report further recommends indictments for participants on the infamous call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R). On the call, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” in Georgia that favored him, a request ultimately declined by Georgia’s secretary of state.

Trump and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were ultimately charged in connection with the call to Raffensperger. 

But all 18 grand jurors recommended Mitchell, a longtime conservative attorney, be indicted on four counts pertaining to the call. The jurors were more split on two other possible charges for Mitchell — making false statements or writings, and making false official certificates or writings by officers of the state. On those counts, 12 jurors voted in favor of indicting Mitchell, while five voted against and one abstained. 

The special grand jury also recommended indictments for Alex Kaufman and Kurt Hilbert, Georgia-based Trump attorneys who were also on the call. 

Several pro-Trump individuals involved in helping convince Georgia state legislators of Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud were also recommended for indictments.

Willis ultimately indicted Giuliani and others who spoke at various hearings in Dec. 2020, but the recommendation list was more expansive.

It includes Jacki Pick, an attorney who walked legislators through a video showing election workers counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. The video became the basis for a conspiracy theory that poll workers had processed “suitcases” of illicit ballots.

It also includes Georgia state Sen. William Ligon (R), who called for a special session to respond to the false fraud claims.

Trump’s legal team had launched three separate suits seeking to toss the grand jury report and quash Willis’s probe, including a later stage effort that sued both Willis and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who presided over the grand jury. 

McBurney had allowed only a heavily redacted version of the report to be released, showing the panel found no evidence of widespread fraud that could have shifted Trump’s loss.

Trump’s legal team pointed to interviews by members of the grand jury after the initial release about some of its contents, arguing that could influence later jurors should he be indicted.

The Georgia Supreme Court however declined to take up the matter, writing that Trump was “circumvent[ing] the ordinary channels” for obtaining relief.

Updated at 3:03 p.m. ET