A juror in Georgia's Trump investigation gabbed about her experience on TV. Experts say that's actually OK.

• The forewoman of Georgia's special grand jury investigating Trump gave a series of media interviews.
• Trump's lawyers argued she ruined a potential indictment, but legal experts say it's fine.

On Tuesday, a 30-year-old who says she didn't vote in the 2020 election threw the Georgia criminal investigation of Donald Trump into a media whirlwind.

Emily Kohrs was chosen as the foreperson of the 23-person special purpose grand jury empaneled in Atlanta by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Her name was uncovered by the Associated Press, which kicked off something of a media tour where Kohrs appeared to bask in the limelight talking about the jury's investigation of Trump's efforts to overthrow the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.

Kohrs declined, however, to answer the question on everyone's mind: Whether the special grand jury, in its still-secret report, recommended criminal charges against Trump himself.

Still, when asked by CNN how many people were recommended for indictments, she made a series of facial expressions that left little in doubt.

"It's not a short list," Kohrs said.

Trump's lawyers pounced.

His attorney Drew Findling told the New York Times that Kohrs had "poisoned" a potential jury pool with her comments. Jennifer Little, another one of his lawyers, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she broke the judge's rules by talking about the special grand jury's deliberations.

"This type of carnival, clown-like atmosphere that was portrayed over the course of the last 36 hours takes away from the complete sanctity and the integrity and, for that matter, the reliability" of the investigation, Findling told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Legal experts who spoke to Insider, however, said Willis had little to worry about.

Would Trump's lawyers try to quash a potential indictment based on the foreperson's comments? Probably. But that doesn't mean they would succeed.

Motions to quash are "uphill battles," according to Ronald L. Carlson, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law.

"She did not give any names of defendants, which would've been bad. And she did not even mention specific charges that the special purpose grand jury may have referenced in their report as being involved with particular cases," Carlson told Insider. "So my thought is, future prosecutions have not been jeopardized by this."

The grand juror closely followed the rules

Under Georgia law, grand jurors have a lot of leeway in terms of what they're allowed to talk about, according to Norm Eisen, a legal ethics expert and co-author of a Brookings Institution analysis on Trump's legal risks.

Kohrs kept a copy of the presiding judge's instructions in front of her during her interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and in other media appearances she noted she was steering clear of details the judge didn't disclose himself.

"Ms. Kohrs has been very openly trying to operate within the parameters that the judge apparently gave her on what is and is not allowed, and so far I don't think she's exceeded them," Eisen told Insider. "Even if she had, they would also need to be prejudicial to Trump and other defendants and they haven't been. There is nothing she has done that compromises their ability to get a fair trial."

Willis empaneled the special grand jury in May 2022. Up until January of this year, the group of Fulton County residents heard evidence and issued subpoenas for a wide-ranging investigation into Trump's efforts to pressure Georgia officials to "find" votes that would reverse his 2020 election loss to now-President Joe Biden in the state.

The jurors also examined evidence for an investigation into an effort to send fake electors to Congress on January 6, 2021, and wrongly reelect Trump as president. The group heard from 75 witnesses in total, including Trump's chief-of-staff Mark Meadows, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, and Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina.

The jurors didn't have the power to bring criminal charges, but they prepared a report of their findings. That report included recommendations for Willis to bring indictments against individuals examined by the grand jury. A brief portion of the report made public by Robert McBurney, the judge presiding over the grand jury, showed they suggested perjury charges against people who may have lied under oath.

Eisen told Insider the comments from Kohrs are more evidence that Willis will bring charges against Trump, even if she didn't say anything groundbreaking.

"Ms. Kohrs' statements further confirm what I and others have been saying for many months: Trump and his co-conspirators are going to face charges in Georgia," he said. "It is beneficial to have transparency. But she's not really saying anything new. You won't find anything material in her statements that wasn't discussed already."

Kohrs has said that one of the first major pieces of evidence they heard was the phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, where Trump wanted to Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes" that would close the electoral gap with Biden.

Carlson said it was yet another indication that the call is a central element in Willis's investigation.

"She did say that was one of the first pieces of evidence they reviewed," Carlson said. "That's going to be a very major item in consideration here."

Everyone already has an opinion about Trump

Willis now has the task of looking at the special grand jury's report and deciding whether to refer its findings to an ordinary grand jury, which has the power to indict.

The district attorney doesn't have to follow their recommendations for charges, noted Neama Rahmani, the president of West Coast Trial Lawyers and a former federal prosecutor. That extra step between Kohrs's special purpose grand jury, and another grand jury that has yet to be empaneled, is another reason why Kohrs's comments are of little consequence, Rahmani said.

"The district attorney can move forward with charges because of the recommendations or, in spite of the recommendations, she can ignore them," Rahmani told Insider. "So it doesn't have any sort of practical legal effect."

Willis sought to keep the special grand jury report secret, telling McBurney in a hearing that disclosing its contents before she made charging decisions might prejudice potential defendants. The comments Kohrs made probably don't go far enough to create "the kind of prejudicial publicity" that would invalidate an indictment, according to Carlson, because she didn't name anyone recommended for charges.

Willis probably doesn't need to worry about Trump's lawyers' argument that Kohrs "poisoned" a potential pool of grand jurors either, experts told Insider.

Rahmani pointed out that plenty of people already have strong opinions about Trump. The interviews likely didn't move the needle much, he said.

"Is it reasonable for Trump to argue that because this one woman gave several media interviews, somehow jurors now have different thoughts on him?" Rahmani said. "I mean, he's the former president. There's everything that happened with the Capitol riot. What one grand juror said, in the scheme of things, is like a drop in the ocean."

Still, Eisen told Insider, it's better not to have a "media circus" around the prospect of indicting a former president.

"Her media tour is a bit of a distraction from the underlying substantive questions of guilt or innocence," Eisen said. "Fortunately, she seems to have stopped."