Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks to the media outside his apartment building following the suspension of his Manhattan law license in New York, New York, U.S., June 24, 2021.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
A New York judge has ordered Rudy Giuliani to testify Aug. 9 before a Georgia grand jury gathering evidence for an investigation into possible criminal interference in that state’s 2020 presidential election by former President Donald Trump, court records show.
Giuliani, as Trump’s personal attorney at the time, led the Republican president’s legal effort to overturn the election results in multiple states won that year by President Joe Biden. Georgia was one of those countries.
A former New York City mayor and former federal prosecutor, Giuliani is part of a group of seven Trump-allied lawyers subpoenaed in late June to testify before a special grand jury in Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta.
The same grand jury also issued a subpoena to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has taken steps to try to block that request for his testimony, as well as another GOP lawmaker who received a subpoena, Congressman Jody Hees.
In a court filing Wednesday in Atlanta, Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis wrote that the subpoena for Giuliani was presented to a New York judge, a process that reflects the fact that the lawyer lives in Manhattan, not Georgia.
On July 11, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber ordered Giuliani to appear in court there and present arguments why he should not comply with the subpoena.
Giuliani did not appear at that hearing. Farber on July 13 issued a final order ordering Giuliani “to appear and testify before the Special Purpose Grand Jury [in Fulton County] on August 9, 2022 and on such other dates as the court may order,” Willis wrote.
The district attorney added that Giuliani had been served with the final order.
Earlier this year, Willis told a Fulton County judge that her investigation into Trump and his allies had uncovered “information indicating a reasonable probability” that the 2020 Georgia election “was subject to possible criminal disruption.”
The district attorney said at the time that “individuals associated with these disturbances” had contacted the Georgia Secretary of State, the state’s attorney general; and the top federal prosecutor in Atlanta.
Willis is known to be looking, among other things, at a January 2, 2021, conversation Trump had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top election official. That call came four days before the US Congress began meeting to certify Biden’s victory in the Electoral College, the group that chooses the winner of the presidential race.
In his call, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” him enough votes in Georgia to overturn Biden’s victory in that state.
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump told Raffensperger during the conversation, which was recorded.
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