Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and Senator David Perdue (R-GA), wave during a campaign event at the Olde Blind Dog Irish Pub, in Milton, Georgia, December 21, 2020.
Al Drago | Reuters
The full special grand jury report that led to the criminal indictment of former President Donald Trump and 18 others for trying to overturn his 2020 Georgia election loss recommended also charging two former U.S. senators from the state, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, and current U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Neither of those three current and former Republican lawmakers were indicted last month by the regular Fulton County Superior Court grand jury that charged Trump and the other defendants.
The full 25-page report of the special grand jury, which finished its investigative work last winter, was released Friday morning.
The special panel had the power to subpoena evidence and testimony from witnesses but did not have the authority to issue indictments.
However, in addition to the three senators, the special grand jury also had recommended indictments be issued against 18 other people who were ultimately not charged by the regular grand jury last month, in addition to the people who did end up being indicted.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) looks on during a news conference calling to designate Russia as state sponsor of terrorism, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, U.S., September 14, 2022.
Tom Brenner | Reuters
Those recommended for indictment, but not charged, included former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn, Trump advisor and lawyer Boris Epshteyn, and campaign lawyer Cleta Mitchell, according to the report.
The special grand jury recommended that Graham, Perdue and Loeffler, along with others, should be indicted for crimes related to “the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, focused on efforts in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia.”
Both Perdue and Loeffler, who were sitting senators at the time of the 2020 election, were defeated in early 2021 runoff elections by Democrats, Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnoff.
Trump’s continued false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential contest were seen as factors that led to the defeat of both Perdue and Loeffler, and Democrats taking majority control of the Senate in 2021.
Graham, a staunch Trump ally, is known to have called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger after the November 2020 election to ask about absentee ballots in that contest.
A footnote in the special grand jury report says that one juror voted against recommending indictments against Perdue and Loeffler on a racketeering conspiracy charge because they believed that the then-senators’ “statements following the November 2020 election, while pandering to their political base, did not give rise to their being guilty of a criminal conspiracy.”
The special grand jury was used by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over seven months since 2022 to gather evidence and take testimony in her investigation of Trump and his allies in that election-reversal effort.
Trump and his co-defendants were indicted by a regular grand jury in Fulton County Superior Court last month on charges alleging a broad-ranging election conspiracy.
Previously unsealed sections of the special grand jury’s report said that members of the panel believed that some of the 75 witnesses it heard testimony from had perjured themselves.
Trump and the other defendants in the case have pleaded not guilty.
Separately, Trump is charged in federal court in Washington, D.C., with crimes related to his bid to reverse the national victory of President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Trump is currently the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination in the upcoming presidential election, teeing up a potential rematch in 2024.
In a social media post Friday, Trump wrote: “The Georgia Grand Jury report has just been released. It has ZERO credibility and badly taints Fani Willis and this whole political Witch Hunt.”
“Essentially, they wanted to indict anybody who happened to be breathing at the time,” Trump wrote in the Truth Social post. “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 of an out of control “prosecutor” doing the work of, and for, the DOJ. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”