Before the mad dogs on the left misrepresent my commentary, allow me to make something very clear
This commentary does NOT address the merits of the election case against President Trump being pursued in Georgia. I make no judgment in the commentary as to whether he is guilty of election misconduct or not – or even whether he should be indicted or not. The only issue is the grand jury concept as it is playing out in Georgia.
On several occasions, I have expressed my opinion of the grand jury as a law enforcement vehicle. The United States is only one of two nations that utilizes this archaic Medieval and unfair system of adjudication. The other is Liberia.
In an attempt to mitigate the unfairness of the process to innocent parties, the work of the grand jury has been historically secret. In fact, it has been a criminal act for witnesses, jurors or prosecutors to reveal details of the deliberations until an indictment is handed down.
The purpose of a grand jury is to issue indictments – as opposed to a prosecutor issuing them. In Georgia, we have seen an even more corrosive version of a grand jury. It is called a SPECIAL grand jury. And what is so special about it, you might ask?
First of all, a Special Grand Jury cannot issue indictments – the one an only job of a traditional grand jury. It changes the process from a legal or judicial process to a political process. It does not create an indictment for a real court, but merely fodder for speculation, rumors, and propaganda for the court-of-public-opinion.
In a previous commentary, I chastised the judge for releasing a portion of the special grand jury findings that created a flood of media speculation without any hard details. The judge’s release provided not more information than an undisclosed number of members of the Special Grand Jury were going to recommend that an unspecified number of unnamed individuals be indicted by the local Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis — who empaneled the Special Grand Jury in the first place. More details have been leaked since.
As might be expected, that set off round after round of baseless and biased speculation on both sides of the political divide. It resulted in more of a disservice to an informed public than a service.
I am not going to comment based on an assumption. The foreman of the Special Grand Jury, Emily Kohrs, has been making the rounds in the media to offer tantalizing hints and bits of information about the deliberations – and Judge Robert McBurney has said it is okay for her to talk about it in public. I assume that means that a Special Grand Jury does not have the legal requirement of privacy or secrecy. Otherwise, the prosecutors would be pressing charges against Kohrs.
Obviously, Kohrs is enjoying her 15 minutes of fame. She was thrilled to tattle over questions like: “Will we know that names of those recommended for indictments?” And like a contestant on a television game show, Kohrs coly responded that some names would be known – others maybe not. (Some media talking heads even said that Kohrs was “making a lot of news.” Really?)
Though she did not name names, at least one newsie interpreted Kohrs’ figurative winking as confirmation that Trump would be among those recommended for indictment. That is scurrilous speculation eve if it turns out to be true.
While Democrats and the left-wing media are hoping – and even reporting – that Trump is going to get his comeuppance in the Georgia case, the reckless conduct of Burney and Kohrs may actually help Trump defend himself.
A number of prosecutors have already expressed fear that these early warning alerts may give Trump’s lawyers a roadmap to a more effective defense strategy. Even worse, they could try to have the entire case against Trump thrown out of court based on grand jury misconduct. That would not mean Trump is off the hook – but that the entire process will have to start all over.
In retrospect … if prosecutor Willis thought there was sufficient evidence to indict Trump or whoever, then why not just issue the indictments? If there was a good reason to kick it over to a grand jury, why not a traditional grand jury and allow them to indict or not?
Why this judicial circus? Why create a prolonged period of baseless speculation, gossip, and innuendo that serves no purpose other than to provide fodder for the media mill – needlessly creating divisive public debate and consternation based on the unknown?
What we see in Georgia is a very bad judicial system worsened by very bad implementation.
So, there ‘tis.