McBurney’s ruling undercuts a legal arrangement that 11 of Georgia’s 16 pro-Trump “alternate” electors had made amid the Fulton County special grand jury probe. They all retained the same two lawyers: Kimberly Burroughs Debrow and Holly Pierson.
The ruling is a partial victory for District Attorney Fani Willis, who had asked McBurney to disqualify Burroughs and Pierson from representing the 11 GOP electors (five other pro-Trump alternate electors have separate attorneys). Willis contended that the joint representation of so many of the GOP contingent electors would present a conflict if any of them were criminally charged and some of them were called to testify against each other.
Pierson and Debrow had argued that the contingent electors had not been charged with wrongdoing and faced minimal criminal exposure for their involvement in the 2020 election effort, and in any case they had all knowingly waived any concerns about a conflict in order to share the two attorneys.
McBurney agreed that any potential criminal charges against the group were “remote and hypothetical” based on what is currently known. He noted that the special grand jury will ,when it concludes, simply make a set of recommendations to Willis, rather than issue indictments, providing even more distance from a potential conflict for the GOP alternate electors.
But Shafer, he said, is “the exception.”
“His fate with the special purpose grand jury (and beyond) is not tethered to the other ten electors in the same manner in which those ten find themselves connected,” McBurney ruled. “This imbalance in exposure to the District Attorney’s investigation makes it impractical and arguably unethical for Pierson and Debrow to represent all eleven together.”
McBurney ruled that the two attorneys could choose to either represent Shafer or the other 10 contingent electors, not all 11, a choice he said would be up to them and their clients.
DeBrown and Pierson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.