Georgia law enforcement probe threats after Trump grand jury identified
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[August 18, 2023]
By Kanishka Singh and Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Law enforcement officials are investigating
threats related to former President Donald Trump's election interference
investigation in Georgia, after names and addresses of grand jury
members were posted online, a sheriff's office said.
"Our investigators are working closely with local, state, and federal
law enforcement agencies to track down the origin of threats in Fulton
County and other jurisdictions," the Fulton County Sheriff's Office said
in a statement on Thursday.
Posts on social media of the purported names and addresses of the Fulton
County grand jury were tracked by Advance Democracy, a non-profit
research organization whose president, Dan Jones, is a former FBI
investigator and staffer for the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Two NBC News reporters who wrote about the grand jury incident later had
their own purported addresses posted online, according to the group's
latest draft report seen by Reuters.
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The organization also found posts employing violent rhetoric against
Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, who oversaw the
more-than-two-year investigation of a suspected scheme by Trump and 18
others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
"Statements by Trump and his allies continue to inspire violent language
and threats online," Jones told Reuters.
"The latest threats against jury members shows you don’t have to be a
politician or government official to be the target. It’s critical that
the Fulton County Sheriff's Office take this matter seriously. Equally
important is that political leaders on the right denounce these threats
and the statements that inspire them."
Fulton County contains Atlanta, Georgia's largest city and the state
capital.
This month, following an indictment by U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith
on Republican Trump's efforts to overturn his election defeat to
Democrat Joe Biden, Trump lashed out on his Truth Social media site,
saying, "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I'M COMING AFTER YOU!"
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![](../images/081823PIX/news_p14.jpg)
A sheriff's vehicle passes by the Lewis
R. Slaton Courthouse and Superior Court of Fulton County, after a
Grand Jury brought back indictments against former U.S. President
Donald Trump and 18 of his allies in their attempt to overturn the
state's 2020 election results, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. August 17,
2023. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
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The 98-page Georgia indictment on Monday listed 19 defendants and 41
criminal counts in all. Echoing his criticism of the other
investigations he faces, Trump has called the indictment a political
"witch hunt." Trump is the front-runner for the Republican
nomination to run for president in the 2024 election.
"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 sheriff's office said.
An indictment in Georgia that is available as a public record
includes the names of grand jurors but not their addresses or any
other personally identifiable information.
A woman from Texas was charged this month with threatening the
federal judge overseeing Trump's separate criminal case in
Washington about the 2020 election.
Reports by Advance Democracy, which conducts public interest
investigations, this week found posts by users on at least four
social media websites targeting the grand jurors that "often
included violent rhetoric."
"These jurors have signed their death warrant by falsely indicting
President Trump," one report quoted a poster as saying.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Jonathan Landay in Washington;
Editing by Scott Malone, Grant McCool and Don Durfee)
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