By Russ Bynum
Authorities in Georgia said Thursday they're investigating threats targeting members of the grand jury that indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies.
Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat's office said investigators are working to trace the origin of the threats after the names of grand jury members and other personal information were posted online. The sheriff's office said other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies were assisting.
“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 in a statement.
A Fulton County grand jury returned a 41-count indictment Monday charging Trump and 18 others with illegally conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Though the grand jury proceedings were secret, the unredacted names of the grand jury members were included in the indictment. That's standard practice in Georgia, in part because it gives criminal defendants a chance to challenge the composition of the grand jury. The indictment itself is a public record.
The American Bar Association condemned any threats as well as the sharing of other personal information about the grand jurors online.
“The civic-minded members of the Georgia grand jury performed their duty to support our democracy,” the association's statement said. “It is unconscionable that their lives should be upended and safety threatened for being good citizens.”
Amid a rise in violent rhetoric directed toward public officials, the Georgia grand jurors aren't the only ones to face threats over their involvement in the four pending criminal cases against Trump.
A woman in Texas has been charged with making an Aug. 5 phone call threatening to kill U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the federal case against Trump in Washington. And FBI agents on Aug. 9 killed an armed Utah man facing arrest on charges of making violent threats against President Joe Biden and law enforcement officials involved in prosecuting Trump.
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The two-sentence footnote raised serious concerns about accuracy and credibility.
