Trump grand jury report calls for charges over 2020 election

A special investigation into alleged attempts to overturn 2020 election results has recommended charges for key figures in Donald Trump’s campaign.

Donald Trump’s allies are facing criminal charges for lying to a special grand jury investigating their efforts to overturn the former president’s 2020 election defeat.

But the full recommendations of the grand jury will remain secret for now, as prosecutors near a decision on laying more serious charges relating to the result in Georgia.

Fulton Court District Attorney Fani Willis’s probe poses a major legal threat to Mr Trump as he campaigns to return to the White House in 2024.

As part of the investigation, members of the special grand jury heard months of testimony from 75 witnesses including the former president’s allies as well as state officials who administered the election.

Former US President Donald Trump speaks at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach. Picture: AFP

Central to the case is Mr Trump’s infamous demand several weeks after the 2020 election for Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to “find” the 11,780 votes he needed to overcome Joe Biden’s lead in the crucial battleground state.

In a section of the grand jury’s report, released on Friday (AEDT), the panel declared that “no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election”, a conclusion that dismissed Mr Trump’s fierce poll challenge.

It also said that a majority of the panel’s members believed “that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it”.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Picture: AFP

“The grand jury recommends that the District Attorney seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,” the panel said.

Earlier this week, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered the release of part of the grand jury’s report but kept its overall findings sealed, describing it as a “roster of who should (or should not) be indicted, and for what, in relation to the conduct (and aftermath) of the 2020 general election in Georgia”.

He said releasing the full report would deny “fundamental fairness” to “potential future defendants”, heightening the prospect of sweeping criminal charges against Mr Trump’s allies after Ms Willis had earlier said charging decisions were “imminent”.

Among those to be notified that they are targets of the probe are Rudy Giuliani, who was serving as Mr Trump’s lawyer at the time of the election, and a group of Republicans who sought to act as an alternate slate of electors falsely claiming Mr Trump had won Georgia.

Rudy Giuliani. Picture: AFP

Mr Trump, who has described the investigation as a “witch hunt”, is also in the sights of a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

A congressional committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot released a report in December which recommended charges against the former president and his allies, although that conclusion had no legal bearing on active criminal probes.