Local journalist testifies before Fulton special grand jury
Journalist George Chidi came to the Georgia State Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, over concerns about extremists trying to interrupt the certification of Georgia’s 2020 Electoral College presidential electors for Joe Biden.
“I had been watching the Capitol for a few weeks before Dec. 14,” he told WABE. “There were groups of white supremacists and white nationalists who had been agitating on the Capitol steps, where the open discussion had broken out about disrupting the Electoral College vote. And I have been tracking extremist activity in Georgia for years. I thought something might happen. So I went to the Capitol expecting craziness.”
Chidi says he then “saw one of the electors, the Republican electors, walk into a room and somebody I knew and I realized that if he was there then the others might be there and they might be trying to pull something. So I pulled out my phone and went Facebook Live, walked in and asked what was going on. And they saw one look at me and saw that I had a phone recording and somebody said ‘he’s got a phone going,’ and they booted me out. But I managed to ask a question first. You’re having a meeting what kind of meeting and somebody blurts out, it’s an education meeting.”
Chidi is referring to 16 Republicans who were meeting as an alternate slate of Electoral College presidential electors for the state of Georgia. He believes his Facebook post and, specifically, the answer to his question to the GOP electors led to him being subpoenaed by the Fulton County special grand jury that is investigating alleged 2020 election interference in Georgia.
Chidi says as a journalist he did fight the subpoena on principle for a little while, but “frankly given the stakes, I did not fight all that hard.” He says he testified before the special grand jury at the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta on July 13.
Chidi says the session included two prosecutors and members of the special grand jury.
“The two prosecutors essentially introduced me and then basically everything else was coming from the jury,” he said. “The jury was extremely engaged. I can’t understate that. They had a very clear sense of what they wanted to know. And they were also very open to the things that they might not understand.”
Chidi says he did not see Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is overseeing the special grand jury.
Chidi is the editor of the Atlanta Objective. He covers politics, business and crime in Atlanta.
The special grand jury is empaneled to work through May of 2023.
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