ATLANTA — The Fulton County District Attorney's Office is requesting emergency protections after recorded interviews with four defendants who took plea deals in the Georgia 2020 election case were leaked to media outlets.
In a court filing Tuesday, prosecutors renewed their push for an order preventing the sharing of all discovery materials beyond defendants and their legal teams. That includes documents and other sensitive data tied to the case, like the official interviews defendants give as part of their negotiated plea.
The district attorney's office said it was not behind leaking the interviews of Scott Hall, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro and Jenna Ellis. Instead, prosecutors appear to blame the legal team for Harrison Floyd, another defendant in the case.
Prosecutors pointed to emails sent to its office, the court and defense attorneys about the leaked interviews, referred to as "proffers." In the conversation, Floyd attorney Todd Harding told the group that it was their team that leaked the information. Floyd's team then quickly backtracked, according to Tuesday's filing.
"Counsel for Defendant Harrison William Prescott Floyd then sent a subsequent e-mail stating that his prior e-mail was a 'typo' and that Defendant Floyd's team did not communicate with the media," prosecutors said.
Attempts to contact Harding before publication were not returned. However, Floyd denied that his team was involved with the leaks in several posts on X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter.
The district attorney's office alleges that the leaks are "intended to intimidate witnesses in this case."
"Going forward, the State will not produce copies of confidential video recordings of proffers to any defendant to prevent further public disclosure. Instead, defendants must come to the District Attorney’s Office to view confidential video recordings of proffers. They may take notes, but they will be prohibited from creating any recordings or reproductions," the filing reads.
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District attorney Fani Willis is requesting that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee enter a temporary order to prevent the disclosure of discovery material by any party. She also wants McAfee to schedule an emergency hearing on a previous request by her office to grant a permanent protective order. McAfee will hold a hearing on the motion Wednesday afternoon.
Defendant David Shafer, the former Georgia GOP chair, argued against a protective order in a separate motion filed Tuesday. Shafer's attorneys said prosecutors failed to show how an order would protect witnesses from "a substantial threat of physical or economic harm."
Shafer's team also provided a less restrictive order for McAfee to consider if he determines one is needed. Trump and four other defendants back Shafer's proposed order.
"No one associated with the defense wishes for any parties, counsel or potential witnesses in relation to this action to be subject to any harassment, much less any harm, as a result of any use of the discovery materials," Shafer's filing reads. "However, the State has proffered no evidence which could be relied upon to grant its proposed order restricting the defense’s use of discovery materials."
Multiple media outlets reported on the contents of the interviews on Monday evening and Tuesday morning.
The Washington Post obtained a series of audio recordings from the interviews. The four former codefendants of President Donald Trump touched on multiple 2020 election topics during their conversations with the district attorney's office, ranging from the alternate slate of presidential electors to the accessing of voting machines in Coffee County, Georgia.
Ellis, a former Trump attorney, told Atlanta prosecutors that top Trump aide Dan Scavino told her in December 2020 that "the boss" didn't plan to leave the White House under any circumstance, the Post reports.
Steve Sadow, Trump's lead attorney, told 11Alive in a statement that any "purported private conversation" is absolutely meaningless as it relates to the case.
"The only salient fact to this nonsense line of inquiry is that President Trump left the White House on January 20, 2021 and returned to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida," Sadow said. "If this is the type of bogus, ridiculous 'evidence' DA Willis intends to rely upon, it is one more reason that this political, travesty of a case must be dismissed.”
Hall, an Atlanta-area bail bondsman, said in his interview that attorney Bob Cheeley, another defendant in the Trump case, was a part of the "brain trust" that organized the Jan. 7, 2021 copying of Coffee County election data. Hall told prosecutors that he was just a "water boy," the Post reports.
11Alive previously reported on Hall's role in Coffee County, examining texts and emails that tied him to the event.
Trump and 18 others were indicted in August on charges they criminally interfered in the 2020 election. To date, four defendants have accepted plea deals. A trial date for the remaining 15 defendants has not been set.