Fulton County Sheriff's Office investigating threats to grand jurors who voted on Trump indictment
Washington — Law enforcement in Fulton County, Georgia, are investigating threats to members of the grand jury that returned the indictment against former President Donald Trump and 18 other associates after the grand jurors' personal information was shared online, the sheriff's office said Thursday.
The Fulton County Sheriff's Office is leading the effort to track down the origins of the threats and working with local, state and federal law enforcement, the agency said in a statement.
"We take this matter very seriously and are coordinating with our law enforcement partners to respond quickly to any credible threat and to ensure the safety of those individuals who carried out their civic duty," the office of Sheriff Pat Labat said.
The sweeping indictment handed up by the grand jury Monday charges Trump and 18 others over their alleged roles in a scheme to reverse the former president's loss in Georgia's 2020 presidential election. The charging document lists 41 counts in all, of which Trump faces 13 counts. The former president has denied wrongdoing and accused Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is leading the investigation, of pursuing a politically charged "witch hunt."
While grand jury proceedings are held behind closed doors, the indictment listed the names of 26 people who made up the panel, though three of the names are crossed out. Legal experts told the Associated Press that it's standard practice for indictments in Georgia to list the names of the grand jurors without redactions because it gives the defense the opportunity to examine the panel's make-up. The names of grand jurors on the federal level and in most other states typically remain secret, making Georgia an outlier.
After the indictment was unsealed, users on social media, including far-right platforms like 4chan, began to call for violence against the grand jurors and Willis, the group Advance Democracy Inc. found. The organization, which monitored the response to Trump's indictment in Georgia, identified one post on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that included photos of some of the grand jury members.
The indictment against Trump in Fulton County is the fourth returned by grand juries this year. In addition to the criminal charges in Georgia, the former president is also facing federal charges in South Florida and Washington, D.C., the latter of which stem from alleged attempts to stop the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election. Trump has also been indicted by the district attorney in Manhattan on 34 state felony counts of falsifying business records.
The former president has pleaded not guilty in the three cases, and he has yet to be arraigned in Fulton County. Trump and the 18 other defendants have until Aug. 25 to surrender to authorities and are expected to be processed at the Fulton County Jail.
His prosecution in Washington has led to threats against the judge presiding over that case, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. A Texas woman was arrested last week after she allegedly sent a threatening and racist voicemail to Chutkan. The woman, Abigail Jo Shry, told Chutkan, in part, "You are in our sights, we want to kill you," according to the criminal complaint filed last week.
