Lawfare Archive: Anna Bower on Judge McBurney’s Deliberations
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2026
⏱️ 43 minutes
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Summary
From January 25, 2023: Judge Robert McBurney of the Superior Court of Fulton County held a hearing on Tuesday to decide whether or not to release the Fulton County Special Grand Jury's report on 2020 election interference in Georgia. Lawfare's Fulton County correspondent Anna Bower was in the room live-blogging the matter, and Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes caught up with her right after the hearing to talk it through. Why did the district attorney argue that the report should continue to be sealed for now? What were the media organizations’ arguments, and which way was Judge McBurney leaning? Is the report going to become public? And if so, when?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Marissa Wong, |
| 0:03.0 | I'm Marissa Wong, Internet Lawfare, with an episode from the Lawfare |
| 0:14.0 | for February 7, 2006. |
| 0:18.0 | On January 28th, the FBI raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, and seized documents and ballots from the 2020 presidential election. |
| 0:28.3 | The raid appears to be part of the Trump administration's larger effort to find evidence supporting the claim that the 2020 election was, quote, stolen, unquote, from President Trump |
| 0:39.6 | through voter fraud and unverified ballots. Fulton County, Georgia is also one of the jurisdictions |
| 0:45.6 | where President Trump was indicted in 2023, following an eight-month investigation into his |
| 0:51.6 | attempts to overturn the election result. For today's archive, I chose an episode from January 25, |
| 0:58.0 | 2003, in which Anna Bauer joined Benjamin Wittes to discuss Judge Robert McBurney's hearing |
| 1:04.0 | on the release of the Fulton County Special Grand Jury's Report on the 2020 Election Inter interference case against Donald Trump, including arguments |
| 1:12.1 | made by the district attorney and media organizations, Judge McBurney's reactions, the future |
| 1:17.8 | of the special grand jury report, and more. |
| 1:35.8 | I'm Benjamin Wittes, and this is the Lawfare podcast January 25th, 2022. |
| 1:43.8 | Judge Robert McBurney of the Superior Court of Fulton County held a hearing on Tuesday to decide whether or not to release the Fulton |
| 1:47.4 | County Special Grand Jury's report on 2020 election interference in Georgia. Our own Anna Bauer was |
| 1:56.8 | in the room live blogging the matter and I caught up with her from the courthouse |
| 2:02.9 | right after the hearing to talk it through. |
| 2:06.3 | Why did the district attorney argue |
| 2:08.9 | that the report should continue to be sealed for now? |
| 2:12.7 | What were the media organizations' arguments? |
| 2:16.1 | And which way was Judge McBurney leaning? Is the report going to |
| 2:20.4 | become public? And if so, when? It's the Lawfare podcast, January 25th, Anna Bauer on Judge |
... |
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