Andrew Kelly | Reuters Rudy Giuliani has been ordered by a New York judge to testify starting Aug. 9 before a Georgia grand jury gathering evidence in an investigation into possible criminal interference in the state’s 2020 presidential election by former President Donald Trump, court records show. Giuliani, who was Trump’s personal lawyer at the time, spearheaded the Republican president’s legal efforts to overturn election results in several states won by President Joe Biden that year. Georgia was one of those states. A former New York mayor and former federal prosecutor, Giuliani is part of a group of seven lawyers allied with Trump who were subpoenaed in late June to testify before a grand jury in Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta. The same court also issued a subpoena to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has taken steps to try to block that demand for his testimony, as has another subpoenaed GOP lawmaker, Rep. Jody Hice. In an Atlanta court filing Wednesday, Fulton County District Attorney Fanni 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 make any argument as to why he should not be forced to comply with the subpoena. Giuliani failed to appear at that hearing, and Farber on July 13 issued a final order requiring Giuliani “to appear and testify before the Special Purpose Grand Committee on August 9, 2022, and on such other dates as may be this Court orders,” Willis wrote. . The district attorney added that Giuliani had been served with that final order. Willis earlier this year told a Fulton County judge that her investigation into Trump and his allies had found “information indicating a reasonable possibility” that the 2020 Georgia election was “subject to potential 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 monitoring, among other things, a Jan. 2, 2021 phone call from Trump to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official. That call came four days before the US Congress began to convene to certify Biden’s victory in the Electoral College, the body that chooses the winner of a 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 in the call, which was recorded.
