Georgia grand jury sought charges against Trump adviser involved in nightclub incident

A Georgia grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election recommended charges against an adviser to former President Donald Trump who was accused of groping a woman at a Scottsdale bar, according to documents released Friday. The grand jury also recommended charges against several other Trump affiliates as well, according to the documents.

The grand jury report recommended criminal charges against adviser Boris Epshteyn, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and former Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, lawyer Cleta Mitchell and lawyer Lin Wood.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis didn't bring charges against any of those people when a grand jury handed up an indictment against Trump and 18 others in August. The special grand jury report acknowledged that Willis would seek indictments only with sufficient cause.

“This grand jury contained no election law experts or criminal lawyers," the special report said. "The majority of this grand jury used their collective best efforts, however, to attend every session, listen to every witness and attempt to understand the facts as presented and the laws as explained."

Epshteyn in 2021 was charged in Scottsdale with “assault touching,” “attempted sexual abuse,” “harassment-repeated acts” and “disorderly conduct-disruptive behavior or fighting,” after a woman told police he repeatedly groped her and her sister at a nightclub.

The first three charges were dismissed, but Epshteyn pleaded guilty in Scottsdale City Court to disorderly conduct and served probation. The conviction was set aside by the court in January 2023.

After a 2014 fight at Dierks Bentley's Whiskey Row, Epshteyn was charged with "assault - touched to injure." Epshteyn punched a man in the nose, according to an accusation included in a Scottsdale police report obtained by The Republic. Epshteyn agreed to a plea deal that required him to avoid contact with the victim and barred him from going back to the establishment. He also had to pay court fees and complete 25 hours of community service.

Running afoul of the law: Trump adviser was accused of groping 2 women in 2021 at Scottsdale club

Epshteyn also was involved in efforts to reverse the 2020 election in Arizona. But unlike Arizona, Georgia has indicted people involved with similar efforts to overturn Trump's loss in that state.

A Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump and 18 co-defendants on Aug. 14, charging them with racketeering in a wide-ranging conspiracy to steal the 2020 election. The 41 charges span allegations of false statements to public officials, impersonating presidential electors and tampering with Coffee County election equipment.

All 19 co-defendants have pleaded not guilty. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee scheduled a trial for Oct. 23 for at least two of the defendants: Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell.

McAfee is still considering when and how to try the rest. At least five of the defendants have asked to move their case to federal court, where U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones is considering their request.

Graham, of South Carolina, who was chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 2020, told reporters on Friday that he was concerned about the potential for criminalizing his work as a lawmaker. Graham said he called officials in Georgia and other states to ask about the 2020 election. He didn’t find evidence of mass voter fraud but said he had concerns about mail-in ballots in Georgia and elsewhere.

“This is troubling for the country,” Graham said of the grand jury report. “You can’t criminalize senators for doing their job when they have a constitutional requirement to fulfill.”

Loeffler said in a post on social media site X that she makes no apologies for representing her state and giving voice to millions of Americans who felt disenfranchised in 2020.

“Trying to jail your party’s leading political opponent ahead of 2024 is election interference,” Loeffler said.

Trump blasted the report as having "ZERO credibility" in a post on Truth Social.

"Essentially, they wanted to indict anybody who happened to be breathing at the time," Trump said. "It totally undermines the credibility of the findings, and badly hurts the Great State of Georgia, whose wonderful and patriotic people are not happy with this charade of an out of control 'prosecutor' doing the work of, and for, the DOJ. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!"

The special grand jury investigated Trump from June to December 2022. A partial report from the panel released in February had recommended perjury charges against some witnesses but found no widespread election fraud that Trump had alleged.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney released the full report.

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In contrast to the indictment against Trump and his allies, the special grand jury report didn’t detail why it was recommending charges. The report simply listed names of potential targets and the statutes that they may have violated.

Perdue and Loeffler were Georgia's Republican senators, who campaigned for reelection with Trump in 2020, but both lost their races. Others, such as Flynn and Epshteyn, were advisers to Trump.

Mitchell, a longtime Republican campaign lawyer, participated in Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” enough votes to win the election.

Flynn attended a White House meeting on Dec. 18, 2020, with Trump and other defendants in the criminal case to argue that Trump could use the military to seize voting machines, according to the House committee that investigated the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. The meeting is cited in the indictment with the attendance of lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who are co-defendants.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump adviser involved in Scottsdale bar incident named by grand jury