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It’s a marvel of the American judicial system that Emily Kohrs, a 30-year-old woman who has described herself as between customer service jobs and who said she didn’t vote in the 2020 presidential election, could play a pivotal role in the potential indictment of a former US president.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves and so, too, may be Kohrs, the foreperson of the special grand jury empaneled from May 2022 through January 2023 to help Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutors investigate Donald Trump.
It’s important to note that Trump has NOT been indicted, and it’s not clear he ever will be. He denies all wrongdoing.
Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who conducted the sweeping investigation in which Kohrs played a role, is still considering what, if any, charges should be brought against Trump or anyone else for trying to overturn the election in 2020. Prosecutors will make that decision – not the special grand jury on which Kohrs served and that heard from witnesses and prepared a report and recommendations.
Kohrs is cagily answering questions, teasing that the special grand jury may have recommended charges for Trump and saying she hopes something comes of it all.
Her identity as the foreperson was first revealed by The Associated Press, and in addition to the AP, she has, in short order, done interviews with The New York Times, NBC News, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and CNN.
The former US Attorney Harry Litman said on CNN on Wednesday that prosecutors have got to be “consternated” that a potential jury pool could be contaminated by Kohrs’ “odd 15-minute PR tour.”
But he acknowledged that her teasing suggestion that Trump could be indicted is nothing short of incredible.
“In terms of magnitude, I’m straining for the right adjectives, but it’d be the biggest thing that’s happened in the criminal law perhaps in American history, right? This has never happened to a former president,” Litman said.
While federal grand juries are notoriously secret affairs, grand juries empaneled in local courts have varying rules. There’s nothing in the statute about special grand juries in Georgia that says they must be secret. In fact, the statute says reports issued by special grand juries should be published if the grand jury recommends it. And Kohrs says the judge gave her and the other jurors permission to speak to the press, albeit with limitations.
In an order rejecting the request of media organizations, including CNN, to release the full report, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney noted the special grand jury is intended to aid the district attorney, not act on behalf of the court. The report, he noted, was issued to Willis, not the court. And it is ultimately up to Willis, an elected Democrat, whether to bring charges against Trump.
McBurney also pointed out that what the special grand jury saw was not a trial where a defendant presents his or her side of a case, but was instead “largely controlled by the District Attorney.”
The special grand jury had 24 jurors, including alternates, although all 24 were never present to hear witness testimony together. Only Kohrs has spoken publicly so far.
The special grand jury is essentially “an investigative tool” and a “one-sided exploration,” McBurney said, designed to enable Willis to make her decision. McBurney released portions of the special grand jury report that said jurors wanted perjury charges brought against some witnesses.
CNN’s Sara Murray reported Wednesday that Willis’ office was not responsible for authorizing whether or not members of the special grand jury could speak to the media and did not know ahead of time that Kohrs was going to go public, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Anthony Michael Kreis, an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University, told Murray that while Kohrs’ media tour was unusual – particularly in a case where no one has yet faced charges – Kohrs was within her rights to discuss the case as long as she didn’t delve into grand jury deliberations.
“She didn’t do anything violative of her obligations,” Kreis said. “I don’t think she did anything that jeopardized Fani Willis’ strategy or her ability to bring her case.”
Kohrs told reporters McBurney gave the jury instructions, and she seemed to consider exactly how far she could go before answering reporters’ individual questions – though she also seemed to enjoy the opportunity to dish about the grand jury proceedings.
Kohrs was clearly tickled to play a part in the special grand jury, laughing repeatedly during an interview with CNN’s Kate Bolduan on “Erin Burnett OutFront” Tuesday night – and seemingly starstruck at the appearance of former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani as a witness.
On the other hand, Kohrs’ simple act of publicly embracing the role is a fascinating example of the US justice system, which ultimately relies on everyday people.
Trump dismissed Kohrs and the Willis investigation in a post on his social media network. “Now you have an extremely energetic young woman, the (get this!) ‘foreperson’ of the Racist D.A.’s Special Grand Jury, going around and doing a Media Tour revealing, incredibly, the Grand Jury’s inner workings & thoughts,” he wrote.
Here are some of the key portions of that fascinating interview with CNN. I’ve paraphrased Bolduan’s questions and have noted Kohrs’ responses in italics.
I think if you look at the page numbers of the report, there’s about six pages in the middle that got cut out. Allow for spacing, it’s not a short list.
I really don’t want to share something that the judge made a conscious decision not to share.
I will tell you that it was a process where we heard his name a lot. We definitely heard a lot about former President Trump, and we definitely discussed him a lot in the room. And I will say that when this list comes out, you wouldn’t – there are no major plot twists waiting for you.
I can’t. Well, I might be able to, according to instructions. But I don’t want to.
I don’t want to speak out on something that the judge, like I said, consciously chose not to release at this point. I don’t know if I would interfere with the DA’s investigations. I don’t know if I would interfere with procedures in some way. I very much do not want to cross that line.
I wouldn’t say that. I would say that – I would say that it ended up included there because it was less pointed of a suggestion than some of the other things we may have written in the parts of the report the judge chose to keep confidential.
I will say that I thought it was important to keep it separate as well, at least in my opinion, not anybody else’s but mine. There’s a difference between the crimes we were called to investigate and crimes that were committed in the room.
I’ve loved being a part of this process. I think it’s amazing to actually be able to be a part of this process for once. I think it’s a privilege to be able to actually be a part of the system for once and making it work.
This has been fascinating to get this peek into the world of politics and of all these different – of government and of all these different things and have the curtain lifted just a little bit and let us peek in as regular people has been amazing. And I’m so glad that I did it.
I think it’s the opposite. I think that by choosing to have a grand jury, by choosing to impanel regular people, they very specifically chose to avoid politics, to take bias out of the question. Because they chose to get, instead of anyone else, they chose to get 16 random people.
I’m not. I’m cautious about my safety. I’m aware of my safety, but I’m not worried. I don’t think I should be – I don’t think I did or any of the jury members did anything that says we believe one way or the other about politics, about any of these issues.
I think we were empaneled to find facts, and I think we did our best to find those facts and share those facts with the district attorney and her office.
