Some of Georgia’s “alternate” 2020 electors have told prosecutors that one group member engaged in illegal conduct, according to a court filing by the district attorney investigating President Donald Trump’s efforts to change the state’s election outcome.
(Bloomberg) — Some of Georgia’s “alternate” 2020 electors have told prosecutors that one group member engaged in illegal conduct, according to a court filing by the district attorney investigating President Donald Trump’s efforts to change the state’s election outcome.
The disclosure Tuesday by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis shows that the so-called fake electors are no longer putting up a united front in the face of the 26-month investigation into actions of Trump and several allies.
In the court filing, Willis asked a state judge to disqualify Kimberly Buorroughs Debrow, an attorney who represents 10 of the people, on the grounds that the new disclosures have created an “impracticable and ethical mess” in terms of conflict of interest. Debrow was present last week when several of her clients told prosecutors of the illegal conduct by another one of her “elector” clients, according to the filing.
Willis also told the court that the DA’s office asked Debrow and Holly Pierson, who represents David Shafer, the former Georgia Republican Party chairman who served as a leader of the alternate slate of electors, to gauge their clients’ interest in an immunity deal last year.
Debrow and Pierson jointly represented all 11 electors until November, when Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney ruled that Shafer needed to have his own attorney.
Pierson told the court that she and Debrow had broached the subject of immunity with all of their clients but that none were interested, according to the filing.
In Tuesday’s filing, Willis said several of Debrow’s clients said they were never told that they could have received a grant of immunity in the case. Willis is expected to decide by May whether to ask a grand jury to indict in the case.
Pierson called Willis’s allegations “entirely false” adding that the DA’s office “continues to seem more interested in media attention, trampling on the constitutional rights of presumptively innocent citizens, and recklessly defaming its perceived opponents than in the facts, the law, or the truth.”
Debrow did not respond to a request for comment.
Willis said each of the “electors” had “signed their names to the false certificate of vote purporting to be the duly elected and qualified presidential electors” for Georgia. A special congressional committee into the 2020 election found the effort to impanel rival slates of electors was criminal, in making referrals to the Justice Department
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