The Fulton County Special Jury heard a phone call between former President Donald Trump and Georgia House Speaker David Ralston as part of his investigation into efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results, jury foreman Emily Kohrs told NBC News on Wednesday.
During the December call, Trump tried to pressure the then-speaker to call a special legislative session to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the battleground state, Kohrs said.
The call recording first reported by The Constitution of the Atlanta Journal, lasted about 10 minutes, Kohrs said. She recalled that Trump had asked Ralston who would prevent him from holding a special session. According to Kohrs, Ralston replied, “A federal judge, that’s who.”
Ralston, a Republican who had spent more than a decade as Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, died in November.
Ralston’s former spokesman and the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
The grand jury conducting a criminal investigation into whether Trump and his allies “made coordinated attempts to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 state election” completed his work in JanuarySubmitting a report of its findings to District Attorney Fani Willis.
That’s what Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled last month Portions of the grand jury report may be made public. McBurney also said in the ruling that the report includes recommendations “on who should be charged (or not) and for what,” but those parts would remain sealed for now.
A group of news organizations asked him to publish the report and he agreed with some of their arguments.
“[W]This release may not be appropriate for the pace of the District Attorney’s investigation, the compelling public interest in these proceedings and the undeniable value and importance of transparency necessitate its release,” McBurney wrote.
Willis’s office had asked that the entire report be kept under wraps for the time being.
In unsealed portions of the report released last month, the grand jury said that was the case believe that some witnesses may have lied under oath.
“A majority of the grand jury believes that one or more witnesses who testified before it may have committed perjury,” reads a section of the report released last month. “The grand jury recommends that the district attorney make appropriate charges for such crimes when the evidence is compelling.”
In an interview with NBC News’ “night news” Last month, Kohrs said the grand jury had recommended indicting over a dozen people, including “might” include the former president.
“There are certainly names that you will recognize, yes. There are also names that you may not recognize,” Kohrs said in an interview.
She said the list of recommended charges was “not a short list” and that there were “definitely some names that one would expect” and declined to name anyone specifically in accordance with the judge’s instructions.
“I don’t think there will be any giant plot twists,” Kohrs said. “I don’t think there’s a giant ‘I wasn’t expecting this’ moment. I wouldn’t expect you to be shocked.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Source : news.yahoo.com