An attorney representing several media outlets likened the request to an overbroad gag order.
By Catherine Yang | Epoch Times
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee held a hearing Wednesday afternoon regarding a protective order, after video statements by four defendants charged alongside former President Donald Trump for allegedly interfering in the 2020 Georgia election, were leaked and published in the media. He is expecting to issue an order Thursday morning.
During the hearing, most parties supported a protective order, but attorney Jonathan Miller, representing defendant Misty Hampton, revealed he had leaked videos.
News outlets, including ABC and CNN, had obtained the video statements, or proffers, made by Scott Hall, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, and Jenna Ellis, to the Fulton County District Attorney’s office as required by their plea bargains.
The prosecutors filed an emergency motion for a protective order after the leaks, prompting the hearing. Nathan Wade, special prosecutor, Will Wooten, deputy prosecutor, and attorneys for the remaining defendants were in attendance.
Judge McAfee was concerned that the proposed order would result in a long series of hearings concerning what discovery material is sensitive or not sensitive, and needs to be kept under seal.
The defendants were largely in agreement with the prosecutors in having the court issue a protective order, which would keep most of the discovery under seal and not available to the public.
Catherine Bernard, attorney for former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, said they were not opposed to the order but did not think one was necessary, as most of the discovery materials are ones that are already available to the public or are being made public shortly via other ongoing cases.
Attorneys for former Marine and Trump campaign worker Harrison Floyd said their client had not leaked the videos, but they had been fielding phone calls from the press at length after what he described as prosecutors misrepresenting the situation and a typo in a statement that made it sound like Mr. Floyd was the source of the leaks.
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The judge gave each party a chance to speak on the record, and Mr. Miller said he felt it should be on the record that he was one of the leaks.
“All four of those people that did their proffers, they stood in front of you, they did their plea, and it was all recorded and sent out there for the world to see,” Mr. Miller said. “To hide those proffers that show all of those underlying things that went into those pleas misleads the public as to what’s going on.”
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Ms. Hampton, a Coffee County election officer, was charged with the same counts as Ms. Powell and Mr. Hall, both of whom took guilty pleas.
“I don’t think those hurt my client. If anything, I believe those help my client, and the public needs to know that,” Mr. Miller said, prompting prosecutors to smile during the live-streamed hearing.
