Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks to the media outside his apartment building following the suspension of his license to practice law in Manhattan in New York City, New York, USA, June 24, 2021.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
Rudy Giuliani was ordered to testify by a New York judge starting on the previous August 9 a grand jury in Georgia which is to gather evidence to investigate a possible crime of interference in that state’s 2020 presidential election by former President Donald TrumpCourt records show.
Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney at the time, spearheaded the Republican president’s legal efforts to overturn the election results in many of the swing states that President Joe Biden won that year. Georgia is one of those states.
A former New York City mayor and former federal prosecutor, Giuliani was part of a group of seven lawyers allied with Trump who were subpoenaed at the end of June to testify before a special grand jury in Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta.
The same grand jury also issued subpoenas to Republicans Senator Lindsey Graham of South CarolinaWho took steps to try to block that demand for his testimony, as did another GOP lawmaker who received a subpoena, Representative Jody Hice.
In an Atlanta court filing Wednesday, Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis wrote that the Giuliani subpoena was filed with a New York judge, a process that reflects the fact that the attorney lives in Manhattan, not not Georgia.
On July 11, Judge Thomas Farber of the Supreme Court of Manhattan ordered Giuliani to direct him to appear in court there and present any arguments he had for the reasons at Why shouldn’t he obey the subpoena?
Giuliani did not appear at that hearing, and Farber on July 13 issued a final order directing Giuliani “to appear and testify before the Special Purpose Jury on August 9, 2022 and on any other date as this Court may order,” Willis wrote.
The district attorney added that Giuliani was served on that final order.
Earlier this year, Willis told a Fulton County judge that her investigation into Trump and his allies found “information that shows a reasonable probability” that Georgia’s election in 2020 “could potentially disrupt crime.”
The district attorney said at the time that “individuals involved in these disruptions” contacted the secretary of state of Georgia, the state’s attorney general; and the top federal prosecutor in Atlanta.
Willis is known to keep an eye on, among other things, when on January 2, 2021, Trump phoned 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 selects the winner of the presidential race.
During his call, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” him enough votes in Georgia to reverse Biden’s win in that state.
“All I want to do is: I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump told Raffensperger on the call, which was taped.
