Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has been ordered by a judge to testify in front of a special grand jury in Georgia investigating former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered that South Carolina Senator Graham will be required to testify on August 2.
The judge’s filing described Graham as a “necessary and material witness” to the grand jury probe. But Graham is not expected to comply.
Last week, Graham’s attorneys said that the senator would not comply with a subpoena issued by the grand jury. His attorneys claimed he cannot be compelled to testify, and have called the legal proceedings a “fishing expedition.”
It is unclear what actual legal grounds Graham could challenge the subpoena.
Graham is not the only member of Trump’s inner circle to be subpoenaed. Members of Trump’s former legal team, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani as well as John Eastman, were also subpoenaed by the grand jury. More subpoenas for other members of the inner circle could also still come in.
The probe was launched after Trump was recorded in a phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, pressuring Georgia’s Secretary of State to overturn the state election results. Trump wanted them overturned based on unfounded — and proven to be false — claims of voter fraud.
On the phone call, Trump urged Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn the state results.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump said to Raffensperger according to the transcript.
That number is exactly what Trump needed to win Georgia. In reality, Trump lost Georgia in the election.
Trump said he did nothing wrong in the phone call. But legal experts disagree. Law experts say Trump’s phone call may have violated at a minimum three state election laws, including the conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, and intentional interference with the performance of election duties.
Legal experts believe that Graham is “desperate” to avoid testifying under oath to prosecutors over the call with Raffensperger in order to avoid incriminating himself.
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