Grand juror spilling the beans

Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court, who is handling the case, has not barred the jurors from talking to reporters, but has sought to limit what they discuss — in particular when it comes to describing their deliberations. Ms. Kohrs is the first of the 23 jurors, and an additional three alternates, to speak out.

[...]

A focal point of the Atlanta inquiry is a call that Mr. Trump made on Jan. 2, 2021, to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which he pressed Mr. Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to recalculate the results and “find” 11,780 votes, or enough to overturn his loss in the state.

[...]

“We definitely talked about the alternate electors a fair amount, they were absolutely part of the discussion,” Ms. Kohrs said. “How could they not be?”

[...]

The jury also looked into hearings before state lawmakers in December 2020, orchestrated by Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, at which Mr. Giuliani and others advanced a number of falsehoods about the election.

[...]

“We found unanimously that there was no evidence of vote fraud in Fulton County in the 2020 election,” Ms. Kohrs said. “We wanted to make sure we put that in, because somehow that’s still a question.”

[...]

Ms. Kohrs, 30, declined to name the people recommended for indictment, since the judge handling the case decided to keep those details secret when he made public a few sections of the report last week. But seven sections that are still under wraps deal with indictment recommendations, Ms. Kohrs said.

Special grand juries in Georgia do not have indictment powers. Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., has led the investigation and will decide what charges to bring before a regular grand jury.

  NYT

An extra step. An extra delay of justice.

“It is not going to be some giant plot twist,” [Kohrs] added. “You probably have a fair idea of what may be in there. I’m trying very hard to say that delicately.”

On the other hand, she was terribly excited about her situation.

Ms. Kohrs said she was between jobs, after helping make masks during the pandemic, when she received a grand jury summons last year. Even though she didn’t vote in 2020, she said she was “insanely excited” about serving on the jury, adding, “This is one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me.”

She could tell that not everyone on the jury felt the same way. “It seemed like everybody else was not initially happy about eight months of jury duty,” she said, and so she volunteered to be the forewoman.

[...]

As forewoman, she got to swear in each of the witnesses who came through, including her state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp.

“It was really cool,” she said. “I got 60 seconds of eye contact with everyone who came in the room. You can tell a lot about people in that 60 seconds.”

Oh Jesus.

Noting that she was 11 when the Sept. 11 attacks happened, Ms. Kohrs said that “Rudy Giuliani is almost like a myth figure in my head, so I’m already intimidated.” She said she made a point of shaking his hand when his testimony was finished.

Oh JESUS.

When Senator Graham testified during the week of Thanksgiving, Ms. Kohrs asked him whether it was too early in the year for her to wear a Santa hat.

His response, she said: “Absolutely not.”

Face palm. 

I'm glad they made the findings they did, but I'm also glad my fate is not in the hands of a Georgia Grand Jury.

Among the things that surprised her in listening to the testimony, including from a number of officials from the Trump administration, was “how much people curse in the White House.”

In Trump's White House anyway.

UPDATE 07:38 am:

Yeah, well, that woman should not have been the foreman, either.  Scary.

I hesitated to read another article on her interview after that NYT one, but I soldiered on with this one.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was on the receiving end of Trump’s pressure campaign, was “a really geeky kind of funny,” she said. State House Speaker David Ralston, who died in November, was hilarious and had the room in stitches. And Gov. Brian Kemp, who succeeded in delaying his appearance until after his reelection in November, seemed unhappy to be there.

[...]

At least one person who resisted answering questions became much more cooperative when prosecutors offered him immunity in front of the jurors, Kohrs said. Other witnesses came in with immunity deals already in place.

[...]

Kohrs said the grand jury wanted to hear from the former president but didn’t have any real expectation that he would offer meaningful testimony.

“Trump was not a battle we picked to fight,” she said.

Maybe I'm judging her too harshly, but "we" probably didn't include her. She would have been giddy to be entertained by Trump.

Though Kohrs said she tends to agree more with Democrats, Kohrs said she doesn’t identify with any political party and prefers to listen to all opinions.

“If I chose a political party, it would be the not-crazy party,” she said.

Kohrs called herself a “geek about the justice system” [...]

And yet...

Kohrs didn’t vote in 2020 and was only vaguely aware of controversy swirling in the wake of the election. She didn’t know the specifics of Trump’s allegations of widespread election fraud or his efforts to reverse his loss.

Could both of those things be true at the same time?

Kohrs sketched witnesses in her notebook as they spoke and was tickled when Bobby Christine, the former U.S. attorney for Georgia’s Southern District, complimented her “remarkable talent.” When the jurors’ notes were taken for shredding after their work was done, she managed to salvage two sketches — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence — because there were no notes on those pages.

  AP

I'm surprised we haven't been shown those.

But, apparently, she DID pay attention and learn some things.

Kohrs was fascinated by an explainer on Georgia’s voting machines offered by a former Dominion Voting Systems executive. She also enjoyed learning about the inner workings of the White House from Cassidy Hutchinson, who Kohrs said was much more forthcoming than her old boss, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Something tells me Meadows is on their list of suggested indictments.

I'm guessing the orange one claimed exoneration by the Grand Jury because he'd already heard they were indicting him.

I did not read that one.  Help yourself.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE :

UPDATE 02/23/2023:

UPDATE 02/24/2023: