Rudy Giuliani has been ordered to testify before a Fulton County, Georgia grand jury about his former client Donald Trump’s efforts to sow seeds of doubt about the outcome of the 2020 election.
According to court paperwork obtained by Law&Crime, Giuliani “failed to appear at a show cause hearing” in New York State that gave him a slim chance of ducking a subpoena issued by the office of Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D). Accordingly, according to court filings, New York State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber ordered Guiliani to testify before a Georgia grand jury on August 9, because Giuliani did not mount a fight against the request from Georgia.
Farber’s original Order to Show Cause filed in New York State on July 12 reads, in part, as follows:
WHEREAS, there has been presented to me as a Justice of the Supreme Court, Part 52, State of New York, a Certificate to Secure the Attendance of Out-of-State Witnesses signed by the Honorable Christopher S. Brasher, Chief Judge of the Superior Court of Fulton County, Atlanta Judicial Circuit, State of Georgia, that a Special Purpose Grand Jury has been drawn and impaneled in said county, that Rudolph William Louis Giuliani is a necessary and material witness for the State of Georgia in said criminal proceeding, that the presence of Rudolph William Louis Giuliani will be required to be in attendance and testify before the Special Purpose Grand Jury commencing on July 12, 2022 and continuing through and until the conclusion of the Witness’s testimony on or before August 31, 2022 and requesting that Rudolph William Louis Giuliani be ordered to appear and testify as a necessary and material witness pursuant to the attached Certificate from the Honorable Christopher S. Brasher, Chief Judge of the Superior Court of Fulton County, Atlanta Judicial Circuit, State of Georgia, a court of record.
In essence, Farber ordered Guliani to appear on July 13 to prove “why a summons of this court should not be issued directing . . . Giuliani to appear and testify.” As noted above, no appearance was forthcoming, a subsequent New York State document indicates. Therefore, Farber issued the following:
THIS COURT relying on the reciprocity between the State of Georgia and the State of New York pursuant to their mutual adoption of the Uniform Act to Secure Attendance of Witness Without the State in Criminal Cases, and being satisfied that the requested testimony of is material and necessary to the criminal proceeding and in the public interest;
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Rudolph William Louis Giuliani appear and testify before the Special Purpose Grand jury in the Superior Court of the State of Georgia for the County of Fulton, on August 9, 2022, and on any such other dates as the court there may order.
Willis’s office followed those New York documents with a Wednesday filing to memorialize the order and to set the date for Giuliani’s appearance as August 9.
Willis has also subpoenaed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Trump campaign legal advisers Cleta Mitchell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, and John Eastman. Graham has signaled wishes to fight the requests to sit and talk in Georgia.
As Law&Crime has previously noted, Willis opened the special grand jury probe in January. The panel has since examined Trump’s efforts to overturn his electoral defeat in Georgia, including his phone call which urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to “find 11,780 votes” — the precise margin Trump needed to win the Peach State in 2020. Raffensperger refused and rejected Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud. Joe Biden won Georgia by 11,779 votes, the Secretary of State’s office concluded after a recount. (The original margin was 12,670, the same office posited.)
The special grand jury can investigate, but it cannot issue indictments, Law&Crime has previously reported.
CNN reported on Wednesday that it had reached out to Giuliani’s attorney but had not heard back. The cable network also noted that Giluani has leaned heavily into “previously debunked evidence” of so-called election fraud when asked to testify in the past about the 2020 election.
Read the court paperwork below:
[Image via Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images]
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