Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is required to go before a grand jury in Georgia looking into former President Donald Trump’s actions after losing the 2020 election.
Graham claimed that when he phoned Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger twice after the election, he was engaging in “legislative activities” and urged a federal court to overturn a subpoena.
Graham was phoning to “explore the likelihood of a more favourable conclusion,” according to lawyers for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, they said in court documents.
In her ruling on Monday, U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May said that Graham’s status as a senator did not exclude him from the Fulton County special grand jury.
According to those who participated in the conversations, “Senator Graham was not just engaging in legislative fact-finding, but was instead urging or insinuating that Georgia election officials modify their procedures or otherwise possibly impact the state’s results,” May said.
On August 23, May ordered Graham to testify before the special grand jury.
The District Attorney had “demonstrated unusual circumstances and a specific necessity for Senator Graham’s testimony,” May said.
Graham will appeal the decision, according to a statement released by his office on Monday.
According to Graham’s office, before voting to certify the election under the Electoral Count Act, Graham was “doing his homework here.”
Despite acknowledging that Speech or Debate could have protected some of Senator Graham’s actions, the district court disregarded both the Constitution’s language and conclusive Supreme Court precedent.
The district attorney for Fulton County chose not to comment on the decision.
In their motion to invalidate the subpoena, Graham’s legal team claimed that Graham “was engaged in quintessentially legislative factfinding — both to help him form election-related legislation, including in his capacity as the Judiciary Committee’s then-Chair, and to help inform his vote to certify the election.”
Georgia was won by President Joe Biden by a margin of less than 12,000 votes, or 0.5%. Graham has already confirmed the conversations and denied any impropriety.
On “Face the Nation” in January, Graham said that he “inquired about how the system worked when it came to mail-in voting, balloting.”
Graham is one of several Trump supporters who have been called before the Fulton County special grand jury since May.
The grand jury has also heard testimony from Georgia state authorities who rejected the former president’s efforts to rig the election.
Rudy Giuliani, a former mayor of New York City who represented Trump personally after the election, is slated to speak before the special grand jury on Wednesday.
Giuliani requested a postponement of his court appearance from the judge supervising the special grand jury because he had a cardiac stent procedure earlier this summer and was not yet approved for flight travel, according to a New York City doctor.
Robert McBurney, the judge, turned down the motion and advised Giuliani to go to Atlanta “by train, bus, or Uber, whatever it would take” before giving his evidence.
The decisions ordering Graham and Giuliani to testify coincide with Trump being the subject of many high-profile investigations, which have raised concerns about him.
A New York City court denied a request to throw out criminal tax fraud allegations against Trump’s business and its former CFO on Friday.
Two days before, when appearing in a court-ordered deposition in a significant civil fraud investigation led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, Trump cited the Fifth Amendment hundreds of times.
Two days before to the deposition, the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for allegedly inappropriately removed top-secret materials from the White House.
In that investigation, federal officials are looking into whether Trump violated three criminal laws, including the Espionage Act.