ATLANTA — Even as former President Donald Trump’s attorneys continue to try to keep that special purpose grand jury report under seal, attorneys for several media outlets, including WSB-TV, are working to get it published.
Attorneys for the media intervenors are appealing the decision to keep the special grand jury report sealed and the appeal, which was filed Thursday, is now before the Georgia Court of Appeals.
In the appeal, attorneys for WSB-TV and other media intervenors, including the Wall Street Journal and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, ask the court to throw out Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney’s decision to keep under seal the Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury’s final report even though the special grand jurors themselves wanted it released.
McBurney worried about its impact before Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could wrap up her case and present it to another grand jury.
Willis herself asked the judge to keep it sealed, but the attorneys argue those are not reasons to keep the report from the public.
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“This order has prevented the public and press from reading the full report even though it addresses a subject of paramount public concern to this state and nation,” the court document said. “While the rest of the nation and world looks on at investigations and indictments stemming from unlawful election activity, the people of Georgia remain largely in the dark on matters that happened in their own backyards.”
This is all happening as attorneys for Trump, himself a probable target for indictment, are fighting to permanently quash everything in that report.
Channel 2′s Richard Elliot showed the appeal to Georgia State Law professor Eric Seagall.
“We need to give the trial judge here a lot of discretion probably, you know. He’s been dealing with this and all that. I think the court of appeals should only reverse if there’s clear error, and I don’t think there’s a clear error here yet,” Seagall said.
Segall agrees this is a difficult case because Georgia law does seem to require the publication of a special grand jury report if that special grand jury requests that.
Still, like the judge, he worries about the reputations of people named in that report who may not be indicted.
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