EXCLUSIVE: Georgia’s Republican lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, is hitting back at the targeting of him and his role in connection with former President Donald Trump’s alleged effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state, as well as the indictments brought against Trump and others on Monday.
Speaking with Fox News Digital by phone just days after Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted by a grand jury in Fulton County, Jones, who was excluded from District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation due to a conflict of interest, blasted the indictments and investigation as ‘sickening,’ and ‘partisan driven,’ but said he welcomed ‘the opportunity to speak to someone who is not a partisan actor’ so he could tell his side of the story once a special prosecutor is appointed.
‘I haven’t done anything wrong, and the people who are being indicted in Fulton County, I don’t think they’ve done anything wrong, either,’ Jones said. ‘They were expressing their opinions in a lot of cases, and for them to be charged and booked and fingerprinted, as if they’re common criminals is something that I just — it’s a little disturbing, to be honest with you.’
Jones, seen as a likely front-runner in the race to replace current Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2026 election, was one of the 16 so-called ‘fake’ electors who claimed Trump won Georgia and attempted to conduct a secret meeting at the State Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, in an alleged effort to overturn President Biden’s victory in the state. Three of the 16 were indicted alongside Trump on allegations of forgery, false statements and impersonating a public officer, among other crimes.
‘Those were the most high-profile folks on there, and that’s who it looks like ended up getting indicted, was people who had either titles or name recognition. And it goes back to what I’ve said before, it is seemingly a self-serving political act by a district attorney here in Fulton County,’ Jones told Fox.
Jones’ exclusion from the investigation that led to the indictments came after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered Willis to drop him in July 2022 because she hosted a fundraiser for Democrat Charlie Bailey, who was running against Jones for lieutenant governor in the general election that November.
As a result of that order, Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys Council Executive Director Pete Skandalakis decided to wait until an indictment was handed down before choosing whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Jones.
‘You read the news outlets — for them to portray that this is something new — it’s not,’ Jones told Fox, saying he knew a special prosecutor would ultimately be appointed following any indictments in the investigation.
When asked what he thought could happen to Trump as the trial progresses alongside the 2024 race for the White House, including potential jail time for the former president, Jones expressed hope that ‘truth will ultimately prevail.’
‘I don’t have a lot of faith in the process that I’ve witnessed so far in Fulton County. I do have faith in the justice system, and I do still believe we have the best justice system in the world,’ he said. ‘I think it’ll be a long, drawn out process, but I believe that the truth will ultimately come forward, and they will have a favorable ruling.’
Jones went on to blast Willis and the millions in taxpayer money he said had been spent on her investigation, along with the manpower involved — all while crime was on the rise across Atlanta.
Jones then ripped what some questioned as the suspicious timeline between the indictments against Trump coming almost immediately after revelations surrounding alleged corruption committed by the Biden family.
‘It’s not much different than Hillary Clinton and the mysterious whitewashing of the hard drive on computer that seemed to get zero attention,’ he said. ‘And now you fast-forward to Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.’
‘Joe Biden has been a career politician. He has been in public service for his entire adult life. But somehow he’s managed to amass a multimillion dollar estate on a $170,000 annual government salary. You tell me how that happens. I think he learned how to game the system, and I think his son — the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. I think he’s learned how to do it himself,’ he added.
Fox News’ Landon Mion and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Brandon Gillespie is an associate editor at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @brandon_cg.