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ATLANTA - The Fulton County grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s potential criminal interference in the 2020 presidential election subpoenaed several close advisers to the former president Tuesday, including Sen. Lindsey Graham and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The subpoenas, which were approved July 5 by the judge presiding over the grand jury, summon senior members of Trump’s legal team, including Giuliani and legal advisers Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Cleta Mitchell, all of whom have knowledge of Trump’s attempts to tamper with the election process in battleground states such as Georgia, according to the documents.
Graham, R-S.C., and the conservative pundit Jacki Pick Deason were also subpoenaed by the grand jury.
The grand jury’s subpoena of Giuliani cites his December 2020 testimony before the Georgia legislature, during which he claimed to have evidence of widespread voter fraud. Giuliani presented lawmakers with a video claiming election workers had produced “suitcases” full of unlawful ballots during counting at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta. Investigators dismissed the claims shortly thereafter.
“Despite this, the Witness made additional statements, both to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings, claiming widespread voter fraud in Georgia during the November 2020 election and using the now-debunked State Farm video in support of those statements,” the subpoena says.
The jury believes Giuliani “possesses unique knowledge concerning communications between himself, former President Trump, the Trump Campaign, and other known and unknown individuals involved in the multistate, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere,” according to the subpoena.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis launched an investigation into Trump’s potential election interference in Georgia in February 2021, not long after The Washington Post reported the former president had pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” in an hour-long call.
This spring, Willis requested a grand jury to be seated to aid the investigation, arguing that it would be able to issue subpoenas to individuals of interest who had otherwise refused to cooperate. The subpoenas of Giuliani and others Tuesday required the approval of Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney because they were directed at people who do not live in Georgia.