When the Georgia special grand jury’s full report was released earlier this month, it memorably listed the names of a bunch of notable people who were recommended for indictment but ultimately weren’t charged by the regular grand jury. It wasn’t clear what accounted for the discrepancy between the special grand jury’s recommendation and the (still-sprawling) 19-defendant racketeering indictment returned by the regular grand jury last month.
But we just got a pretty big clue about why one person was on the special grand jury’s list but hasn’t been indicted: Lin Wood.
But we just got a pretty big clue about why one person was on the special grand jury’s list but hasn’t been indicted: Lin Wood.
The MAGA lawyer — who retired from law practice in the face of professional discipline after working to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss — is a “witness for the State,” according to a new filing from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Wednesday.
What led the prosecution to reveal this intriguing fact?
It came in a notice to the court about potential conflicts of interest for several attorneys representing defendants in the 2020 election interference case. One of the lawyers is Harry MacDougald, who represents Jeffrey Clark (who’s currently trying to move his state charges to federal court). Willis’ notice pointed out, among other things, that MacDougald previously represented and was co-counsel to Wood in a failed 2020 election-related petition at the Supreme Court.
“Mr. MacDougald’s former clients and co-counsel would be subject to cross-examination by him were he to remain counsel of record in this case,” Georgia prosecutors wrote. They also noted that MacDougald, along with Wood and Sidney Powell (who’s also charged and is set for trial next month alongside co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro), had represented a group of people in another 2020 election case. The group includes current state witnesses as well as Cathleen Latham, who’s charged in the indictment as well.
It’s a tangled MAGA web.
Another lawyer with a potential conflict, according to Georgia prosecutors, is Chesebro lawyer Scott Grubman, who previously represented Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his wife, Patricia Raffensperger, who also are state witnesses.
But why do prosecutors care about any of these potential conflicts if theoretically they’re potentially bad for the defendants?
In their notice, the prosecutors said they want the court to “inquire into these circumstances and take such appropriate remedial measures as it deems necessary to ensure that the rights of both witnesses for the State of Georgia and the Defendants in this case are preserved in accordance with” professional conduct rules. They wrote that they’re compelled to raise the potential conflicts, noting:
The State is so compelled not only because it is paramount that the District Attorney, as a minister of justice, must guarantee that the constitutional and statutory rights of all persons are preserved at every stage of a criminal proceeding, but also because the State’s failure to do so would be fundamentally at odds with every lawyer’s duties as “a representative of clients, an officer of the legal system, and a citizen having special responsibility for the quality of justice.”
A simpler way to look at it is that prosecutors don’t want to rack up a bunch of convictions and then have them messed up on appeal because of any conflict issues raised after the fact.
With Chesebro and Powell already coming up for trial next month, we should see a resolution of this issue soon one way or the other.
