Former President Donald Trump should not face charges in the Georgia investigation into his election interference because of public statements made by the jury forewoman, his lawyer has claimed.
“Georgia has completely tainted the jury pool, because now you have an entire jury pool of people who believe that there is some crime that President Trump has committed or his allies have committed, but nobody knows what it is,” Christina Bobb told Newsmax on Saturday. “And so they’re trying to get ahead of the game here and try to taint the jury pool, try to lead the public to believe that there’s a crime here, without providing them with an opportunity to defend themselves.”
Jury forewoman Emily Kohrs has created major waves by publicly speaking about Trump and the case in televised interviews. Ms Bobb said the behaviour “should mean that there should be no charges.”
“Any defendant – I don’t know who they’re going to try to indict, but any of them, whether it’s the President or any of his allies – all of them have had their constitutional rights violated by this media tour, by the district attorney allowing this craziness,” she said.
Ms Kohrs has spoken – with distinctive energy, excitement and animated facial expressions – about her service as foreperson on the grand jury hearing evidence in the case of Mr Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 defeat in Georgia. Some of her comments in particular described the grand jury’s deliberations, including whether they found some witnesses who appeared before them to be credible.
She also explained the grand jury’s decision not to seek testimony from Mr Trump himself, though she was careful not to address any direct prompts to name witnesses or targets of the probe who were recommended for criminal charges.
She did, however, giggle when asked about Mr Trump’s comments that the grand jury “exonerated” him.
Her behaviour and openness have come in for criticism from both sides of the aisle, prompting worries the unusual situation could jeaopardise the case.
But Steve Plafker, a retired deputy district attorney for the county of Los Angeles, said that Ms Kohrs’ remarks would be a “drop in the bucket” compared to the entirety of the public speculation that has taken place around this case, and noted that her remarks did not even occur as a trial was underway. Finding jurors who were unfamiliar with her remarks would merely be part of the jury selection process should that take place, he said.
“In light of the publicity Mr Trump, or any politician for that matter, attracts generally, this woman’s statements are a drop in the bucket, actually the ocean,” Mr Plafker explained. “I do not see any chance of prejudice arising from them.”
