Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump filed a motion in a Georgia court on Monday seeking to quash the final report of a special grand jury that investigated whether Mr. Trump and some of his allies interfered in the 2020 election results in Georgia. The motion also seeks to “preclude the use of any evidence derived” from the report, and asks that the office of Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, be recused from the case.
The move comes as Mr. Trump has started pushing back more broadly against several criminal investigations into his conduct. Over the weekend, Mr. Trump said in a social media post that he would be arrested on Tuesday as part of an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney into a hush money payment he made to to a porn actress, and called on his supporters to protest.
In Georgia, Mr. Trump is seen as having two main areas of legal jeopardy: the calls he made in the weeks after the 2020 election to pressure state officials to overturn the results there, and his direct involvement in efforts to assemble an alternate slate of electors, even after three vote counts affirmed President Biden’s victory in the state. Experts have said that Ms. Willis appears to be building a case that could target multiple defendants with charges of conspiracy to commit election fraud or charges related to racketeering.
Notice of the filing appeared in the official court docket on Monday morning, but the filing itself was not yet public. Mr. Findling acknowledged that he had filed it on Mr. Trump’s behalf, along with Ms. Little and another lawyer from Mr. Findling’s firm, Marissa Goldberg.
Last month, Mr. Trump’s lawyers in the Georgia case, Drew Findling and Jennifer Little, said that the forewoman of the special grand jury in Fulton County had “poisoned” the inquiry there by granting a number of media interviews in which she discussed details of the jury’s work. Last week, five other jurors discussed aspects of their work in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Fulton County special grand jury was sworn in last May and met behind closed doors for months, hearing testimony from 75 witnesses. It did not have the power to issue indictments; rather, it produced a report containing recommendations on whether and whom to indict. Portions of the report were released in January, but key sections remain under seal, including those detailing which people the jury believes should be indicted, and for what crimes.