Fulton County prosecutors hand over list of 30 unindicted co-conspirators to Chesebro and Powell
By Jeremy Herb, Zachary Cohen and Sara Murray, CNN
(CNN) — The two Georgia election subversion defendants headed to trial next month will get access to more information from prosecutors, including grand jury materials and details about unindicted co-conspirators, a judge decided Thursday.
Fulton County prosecutors on Thursday provided the names of the 30 unindicted co-conspirators in the election subversion case to the defendants, and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said he would give defendants access to some witness transcripts from the special grand jury that recommended that charges be brought.
McAfee addressed a series of legal requests submitted by two of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants, pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro and former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, ahead of their trial that is scheduled to begin October 23. Chesebro and Powell have pleaded not guilty.
Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, McAfee announced that Chesebro and Powell will go to trial in October separately from the other 17 co-defendants, including Trump. A trial date for the other co-defendants has yet to be announced.
There was little disagreement during the hearing over handing over the identities of the unidicted co-conspirators to the defense attorneys. Following a judge’s order, prosecutors provided the names to Chesebro and Powell’s lawyers ahead of next month’s trial.
The names of the co-conspirators weren’t made public as part of the hearing. CNN has previously identified many of the 30 co-conspirators, who aided the efforts to overturn the 2020 election but aren’t facing any charges.
Defense attorneys likely to get witness transcripts
McAfee said Thursday he would give defendants in the sprawling Georgia election subversion case access to some witness transcripts from the special grand jury that recommended that charges be brought.
The judge will be allowing the defense teams access to transcripts of witness testimony before the special grand jury, if the witness is called to testify at trial. He is still considering whether the defense teams should receive additional information from the special grand jury used to investigate the 2020 election aftermath.
The special grand jury proceedings took place before a regular grand jury met and handed up the indictment.
Fulton County prosecutors want to keep the information – specifically transcripts of the witness testimony before the special grand jury – secret.
Prosecutor Nathan Wade distinguished the special grand jury from the grand jury that approved the indictment, because the special grand jury has an investigative function and not a charging function. The integrity of special grand jury investigations could suffer, Wade said, if those witnesses knew their testimony would be shared with defense teams later.
But Manny Arora, Chesebro’s defense attorney, says grand jury proceedings are “one-way traffic” under the control of the prosecution team, which is why he is arguing to access transcripts from the dozens of witnesses who testified to the special grand jury. Few witnesses were called to a regular grand jury following the special grand jury issuing its final report, and the grand jury that indicted Trump and 18 others heavily relied on the special grand jury’s work.
Without the judge’s intervention, the defense team would only have access to the report itself and the grand jury activity after the special grand jurors finished their work, as well as the transcripts of witnesses who testified to the special grand jury and are lined up to testify in the prosecutors’ case at the trials of Chesebro and Powell.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
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CNN’s Marshall Cohen, Katelyn Polantz, Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.
