The subpoena, which Hice received on June 29, orders him to appear before a special grand jury in Atlanta on Tuesday, his attorney said in a court filing. Hice on Monday filed a motion to quash the subpoena in federal court in Atlanta. Any conversations Heis had as he investigated “alleged irregularities” in the election were within his authority as a member of Congress and are protected by the US Constitution from any legal process and investigation, his lawyer wrote in the filing. High-ranking officials, such as members of Congress, also should not be called as witnesses unless the information they could provide cannot be obtained from another source, the filing said. Hice is trying to have his challenge to the subpoena heard in federal court rather than the Fulton County Superior Court judge who oversees the special grand jury. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened an investigation early last year into whether Trump and his allies committed crimes as they tried to overturn his narrow defeat in the state election. At her request, a special judicial commission with subpoena power met in May. A number of top Republican officials — including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr — have already testified before the special grand jury. Gov. Brian Kemp is scheduled to give a sworn taped statement on July 25. Hice, who will leave office in January after an unsuccessful bid to unseat Raffensperger, was one of several GOP lawmakers who attended a December 2020 meeting at the White House in which Trump allies discussed various ways to to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory. Hayes joined other members of the House Freedom Caucus, a conservative wing of the chamber, in the hour-long meeting to discuss with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows two specific strategies for overturning the election results. The first was an attempt to appoint an alternate list of electors that would falsely declare Trump the winner in seven battleground states won by Biden. The second was a plan to bolster a pressure campaign against then-Vice President Mike Pence to ignore the true electoral votes from those seven states when he presided over the certification process on January 6, 2021. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Meadows, revealed details of the White House meeting to the House committee investigating the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. Earlier this month, Willis began a process of subpoenaing out-of-state witnesses to testify. That included some of Trump’s close advisers and allies, including U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who also served as Trump’s lawyer. Graham has a hearing scheduled in South Carolina federal court later this week to try to fight Willis’ attempt to get him to testify. Willis, a Democrat, charged that she was interested in the actions of the group of 16 Georgia Republicans who, acting as surrogate voters, signed a certificate falsely saying Trump had won the state when it was actually Biden who won the most votes. .
Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri in Washington contributed to this report.
