JUST IN: Election Crimes Judge Pushes Back On Trump Lawyer’s Attacks — Says Jury Complied With All The Rules

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney spoke out to CNN to defend the election crimes grand jury from attacks by former President Donald Trump’s lawyers.

After part of the report from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ grand jury investigation of former President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn election results in Georgia was released, Fulton County Grand Jury foreperson Emily Kohrs became a lightning rod for criticism by going on a media tour that Trump’s attorneys, among others, pounced on.

On Friday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, anchor Anderson Cooper and CNN correspondent Sara Murray reported that the judge in the case, while not specifically commenting on Kohrs, clarified the rules for jurors and responded to a statement from Trump’s lawyers by saying the grand jurors had “complied with all the rules”:

ANDERSON COOPER: CNN political correspondent Sara Murray spoke with the judge and has the latest for us tonight. Sara, what did the judge tell you about the foreperson who spoke out earlier this week?

SARA MURRAY: Well, he really elaborated on what the guiding principles were and what he told the special grand jurors they could share. He made it clear that they are allowed to share what witnesses said to them, what they decided to put in the final report.

So even if Emily Kohrs had come out and said explicitly, these are the names of the people we referred for criminal indictment, she still would have been within the bounds of what the special grand jurors are allowed to share. But what they were not allowed to share are the deliberations. So essentially, anything that went on, you know, she was talking to other special grand jurors without the witnesses in the room, without prosecutors in the room.

And we asked, my producer and I, you know, do you think, Emily Kohrs may have overstepped at any point, may have violated these rules? And he said it’s not for me to assess. So he was playing it a little careful there. But I think people are really thrown because these secrecy rules for this special grand jury in Georgia are obviously very different from what we are used to seeing from federal grand juries.

ANDERSON COOPER: How are the former president’s attorneys reacting to all this?

SARA MURRAY: You know, the former president’s attorneys have basically slammed Emily Kohrs’ media tour this week. They said it undermines the seriousness of the investigation that was conducted by the special grand jury. They said whatever conclusions were drawn were not the risk of an analytical, trustworthy or credible investigation. When we spoke to Judge McBurney about what he felt about the integrity of the process, he said he felt like the special grand jury complied with all the rules, all the laws surrounding this, and essentially upheld the charter and their mandate

Watch above via CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.

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