Court Battles

Georgia DA moves to shield prospective jurors in Trump case

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, right, talks with a member of her team during proceedings to seat a special purpose grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, on May 2, 2022, to look into the actions of former President Donald Trump and his supporters who tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. (AP Photo/Ben Gray, File)

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the day on which the motion was filed.

Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis moved to shield prospective jurors’ identities in the case involving former President Trump.

In a late Tuesday afternoon filing, Willis asked the court to “[p]revent any [d]efendant, members of the press, or any other person from videotaping, photographing, drawing, or otherwise creating or publishing images of the jurors or prospective jurors inside or outside the courtroom.” 

Willis also asked the court to block defendants, the press or anyone else from “publishing any verbal or written descriptions of any information that would assist persons in determining the identity of any jurors or prospective jurors, specifically physical descriptions, telephone numbers, addresses, employer names, and membership affiliations of all jurors or prospective jurors.”

The motion also featured attached affidavits by the chief of Atlanta Police and the assistant chief investigator of the technology unit for the Fulton County DA’s office, describing doxxing and harassment faced by Willis and the grand jury that indicted Trump and 18 co-defendants in a case related to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Concerns about Trump revealing details about a case in which he’s involved are not new. In the indictment Trump faces in federal court in Washington, federal prosecutors asked for a protective order to prevent the former president from publicly sharing evidence during the discovery phase of the case last month.