A federal judge in Georgia on Friday denied Sen. Lindsey Graham’s latest attempt to escape a subpoena to testify before a special grand jury n Fulton County, Georgia investigating his alleged election interference in the state on behalf of the Trump campaign.
NBC News reports, Sen. Lindsey Graham loses bid to delay testifying in Georgia Trump probe:
Lawyers for Graham, R-S.C., had asked Judge Leigh Martin May to temporarily block an order she issued earlier this week denying his bid to quash the grand jury subpoena. They appealed the decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and asked May to put her ruling on hold during the appeals process.
The Fulton County district attorney’s office urged the judge to deny the request in a court filing Friday, arguing that Graham’s legal maneuverings have already cost the special grand jury precious time. The DA’s office noted it first sought Graham’s appearance in early July.
“Six weeks later, after litigation in three separate jurisdictions, the District Attorney is still attempting to provide the [Special Purpose Grand Jury] with the Senator’s crucial testimony,” the DA’s office wrote, noting that a stay of May’s ruling could lead to months of additional litigation.
“Given the possibility that Senator Graham’s testimony could reveal additional routes of inquiry, staying remand and enjoining his appearance at this stage could ultimately delay the resolution of the SPGJ’s entire investigation,” their filing said.
The judge sided with the DA’s office later Friday.
“Senator Graham raises a number of arguments as to why he is likely to succeed on the merits, but they are all unpersuasive,” she wrote in the ruling.
The grand jury was impaneled this year to assist District Attorney Fani Willis’ criminal investigation into possible 2020 election interference by former President Donald Trump and others.
Among the incidents Willis has said she’s investigating is a pair of post-election phone calls Graham made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, and his staff. Raffensperger said Graham pressed him about whether he had the power to reject certain absentee ballots, which Raffensperger interpreted as a suggestion to toss out legally cast votes.
Graham “also made reference to allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election in Georgia, consistent with public statements made by known affiliates of the Trump Campaign,” according to a subpoena demanding his testimony.
Graham and his lawyers have said he made the calls in his then-role as a chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee [total B.S., he was acting on behalf of the Trump campaign], adding in a statement last month that he “was well within his rights to discuss with state officials the processes and procedures around administering elections.”
In court filings, Graham’s lawyers also argued that because he was acting in a legislative role [total B.S., he was acting on behalf of the Trump campaign], the speech and debate clause of the Constitution shields him from testifying.
The judge found that Graham’s interpretation was too broad, and said investigators could ask him about the circumstances of the calls, including whether there was “any coordination either before or after the calls with the Trump campaign’s post-election efforts in Georgia.”
Barring a stay from the 11th Circuit, Graham is scheduled to testify next week, on August 23.
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Law & Crime reports, “11th Circuit Puts Subpoena of Sen. Lindsey Graham on Hold, But Not Without Handing Him a ‘Partial’ Loss Already”, https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/11th-circuit-puts-subpoena-of-sen-lindsey-graham-on-hold-but-not-without-handing-him-a-partial-loss-already/
A federal appeals court temporarily put a subpoena on hold Sunday, giving Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) more time to present a fully developed argument that he should not have to give testimony in an investigation about his knowledge of or potential involvement in efforts to interfere with the 2020 election.
[G]raham next retained Trump’s former White House counsel Don McGahn to challenge the grand jury’s subpoena. In court filings, Graham argued through counsel that “being forced to testify in front of a state-court investigative body” would raise “constitutional issues that the Framers thought were ‘indispensably necessary[]’ to a functioning Republic—namely, that legislators ‘should enjoy the fullest liberty of speech, and that [they] should be protected from the resentment of every one, however powerful, to whom the exercise of that liberty may occasion offense.’”
Graham’s arguments failed to convince U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May, who ruled that neither sovereign immunity nor the Speech or Debate Clause operate to shield Graham from the subpoena. May, a Barack Obama appointee, further ruled that Willis “has shown extraordinary circumstances and a special need for Senator Graham’s testimony on issues relating to alleged attempts to influence or disrupt the lawful administration of Georgia’s 2022 elections.”
May wrote that “Senator Graham has unique personal knowledge about the substance and circumstances of the phone calls with Georgia election officials, as well as the logistics of setting them up and his actions afterward.”
Graham appealed May’s ruling to the 11th Circuit. A three-judge panel made up of U.S. Circuit Judges Kevin Newsom and Britt Grant (both Trump appointees) and U.S. Circuit Judge Charles Wilson (a Bill Clinton appointee) ruled Sunday to temporarily stay May’s August 15 order.
The brief 14-line order simply put the matter on hold while the parties were directed to brief the issue of what protections might be afforded to Graham by the Speech or Debate Clause before the district court.
The panel’s specific wording, however, appears to contain an indication of the court’s position on Graham’s claim of outright immunity. The court wrote that, “This case is REMANDED to the district court for the limited purpose of allowing the district court to determine whether Appellant is entitled to a partial quashal or modification of the subpoena to appear before the special purpose grand jury.”
Several pointed out that the 11th Circuit indicated that a “partial quashal or modificiation of the subpoena” was all that was on the table.
In a tweet reacting to the news, Norm Eisen called the ruling “a loss for Lindsey Graham” that was “looking bad for him.”
Former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman called the stay “odd” in a tweet, and pointed out that Graham only applied for a full quashing of the subpoena.
Likewise, law professor Kimberly Wehle tweeted that the ruling seems “bad for Graham because it leapfrogs over his appeal on total immunity.”
Despite the 11th Circuit’s signals that any protection for Graham would be limited in scope, some were still critical of the court’s action nonetheless.
Constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis tweeted that the court is “throwing a wrench into a criminal investigation.”
Likewise, former U.S. Attorney and NBC/MSNBC legal analyst Joyce White Vance said that the ruling “significantly delays Fani Willis’ ability to take Lindsey Graham’s testimony,” and that the delay “could be months, not weeks.”
It didn’t take long for the district court to respond and set deadlines, however.
A judge has fast-tracked Lindsey Graham’s challenge to his Fulton County subpoena, giving tight deadlines for briefs to be filed.
Recap: Graham had been set to testify on Aug 23. But then yesterday an appeals court told this judge to more fully brief the constitutional issues.
-The order says Lindsey Graham has until 9:00 a.m. Wednesday, August 24 to file a motion for his specific request for relief; the Fulton County DA has until 9:00 a.m. Monday August 29 to file its response; Graham’s reply is due by 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, August 3.