Giuliani opens criminal probe into 2020 election

Outspoken Trump defender Giuliani could face criminal charges in an investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Willis, bringing the probe closer to the former president. Willis has said she is considering calling Trump himself to testify before a special grand jury, and the former president has hired a criminal defense attorney in Atlanta.

Law enforcement scrutiny of Trump has escalated sharply. Last week, the FBI raided his Florida home as part of an investigation into whether he brought classified records from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. He also faces a civil investigation in New York alleging that his company, the Trump Organization, misled banks and tax authorities about the value of its assets. The Justice Department is investigating a Jan. 6 riot by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol and efforts by him and his allies to overturn an election he falsely claimed was stolen.

Giuliani, who spread false accusations of election fraud in Atlanta’s Fulton County as he leads a challenging election in Georgia, will meet on Wednesday in a congress formed at Willis’ request. Testified before a special grand jury. Giuliani’s lawyer declined to say whether he would answer questions or decline.

Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello, said Monday that special counsel Nathan Wade warned Giuliani’s team in Atlanta that he was the target of the investigation. The New York Times first reported the revelation. Giuliani said on a New York radio show Monday that he had been serving as Trump’s attorney in Georgia.

“You do that to lawyers and we’re out of America,” he said.

Earlier Monday, a federal judge said U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham must testify before a special grand jury. Prosecutors said they wanted to ask Graham about calls they said he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffinsburg and his staff in the weeks after the election. Willis’ investigation was sparked by a phone call between Trump and Rafensberg.

In that conversation in January 2021, Trump suggested that Rafensberg “find” the votes needed to reverse his narrow loss in the state. Willis filed a petition last month in an attempt to pressure seven Trump associates and advisers to testify.

In seeking testimony from Giuliani, Willis identified him as both Trump’s personal attorney and his campaign’s lead attorney. She wrote that he and others appeared at a state Senate committee meeting and showed what Giuliani said was a video showing election workers producing illegal ballots from unknown sources out of sight of election poll observers. “suitcase”.

Within 24 hours of the hearing on Dec. 3, 2020, Rafensberger’s office debunked the video. But Willis wrote that Giuliani continued to make statements to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings alleging widespread voter fraud using the debunked video.

Her petition said there was evidence that Giuliani’s hearing and testimony were “part of a coordinated multistate plan by the Trump campaign to influence the outcome of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere.”

Two election workers seen in the video, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, said they faced relentless harassment both online and in-person during Georgiani’s Dec. 3 hearing on Georgia state legislation. At another hearing a week later, Giuliani said the video showed the women “sneaking around USB ports as if they were vials of heroin or cocaine.” They are actually passing a piece of candy.

Willis also wrote in a petition calling for the testimony of attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who worked with Giuliani to coordinate and execute a lawsuit that had Georgia Republicans acting as fakes. voters’ plans. Those 16 people signed a certificate declaring falsely that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors even though Joe Biden had won the state and a slate of Democratic electors was certified.

All 16 fake voters received letters saying they were the target of the investigation, Willis said in a court filing last month.

As for Graham, the South Carolina Republican’s attorney argued that his position as U.S. senator shielded him from appearing before the panel. But U.S. District Judge Ray Martin May wrote in an order Monday that immunity related to his role as a senator does not protect him from testifying. Graham’s subpoena requires him to appear before a special grand jury on Aug. 23, but his office said Monday that he plans to appeal.

Last month, Republican Rep. Jody Hice rejected a similar attempt to avoid testifying before a special grand jury. Graham’s office said in a statement Monday that the senator disagreed with the judge’s interpretation of the constitutional provision, which he believed protected him from questioning by state officials. His lawyers said he was conducting an investigation as part of his legislative duties involving voting certification and election-related legislative proposals.

But the judge wrote that this ignores “the individuals on the call who publicly suggested that Senator Graham was not merely involved in legislative fact-finding, but implied or implied that Georgia election officials were changing their procedures or otherwise potentially changing the state’s result in the fact.”

In a phone call shortly after the 2020 election, Graham “asked Ravensberg and his staff whether to re-examine certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia,” Willis wrote in a petition. , to explore the possibility of an outcome favorable to former President Donald Trump.”

Graham also “referenced allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 Georgia election, consistent with public statements made by prominent affiliates of the Trump campaign,” she wrote.

State election officials, both Republican and Democrats nationwide, courts and even Trump’s attorney general have found no evidence of voter fraud enough to affect his loss in the 2020 presidential election.

When Congress meets on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump-aligned lawmakers plan to challenge statistics from several battleground states to justify results under the Election Counting Act, but after the Capitol attack that day, Georgia State statistics have never been questioned.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and called his appeal to Ravensberg “perfect.”