Half of Trump’s ‘fake electors’ accept immunity in Georgia investigation

Half of the 16 so-called fake electors in Georgia who sought to falsely declare Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 election have accepted immunity deals in the local criminal investigation into the matter, their lawyer said in a court filing on Friday.

The immunity deals to the eight came in April, according to the filing, after the Fulton county district attorney's office called their lawyer and said prosecutors were willing to make the arrangement - about four months after the lawyer asked about the prospect of such deals.

With half of the fake electors now apparently immune from prosecution, the scope of a potential conspiracy indictment ensnaring Trump and the electors - identified as targets in the case - may have narrowed, not least because the immunity deals did not compel any incriminating information in return.

The filing also raised new questions about how prosecutors might handle the fake electors more broadly, after the lawyer for the eight, Kimberly Debrow, effectively accused the district attorney's office of misrepresenting key facts in an earlier motion seeking to have her disqualified.

The latest twist in the Georgia election criminal investigation comes as the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, is expected to ask a grand jury starting in mid-July to return charges against Trump and dozens of people involved in efforts to reverse his defeat in the state of Georgia.

Last month, the district attorney's office sought to disqualify Debrow from the case entirely, citing her clients' testimony that they were not told of immunity offers, and citing a conflict of interest after some of her clients implicated another one of her clients in a separate crime.

In the 68-page brief filed on Friday, Debrow vehemently disputed the claims, saying that transcripts and recordings of interviews - submitted to the court for a confidential review - showed that none of her clients told prosecutors that immunity offers were not brought to them in 2022.