‘It’s all politics’: SC’s Graham to challenge Georgia subpoena in 2020 election case
Sen. Lindsey Graham will challenge a subpoena ordering him to testify in front of a Georgia grand jury investigating possible criminal interference in the state’s 2020 election.
The South Carolina Republican has hired Charleston attorneys Bart Daniel and Matt Austin, of the Nelson Mullins law firm, according to a statement Wednesday that called the subpoena by the Fulton County grand jury “all politics” and part of a “fishing expedition” to share information with the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Graham’s been called to testify July 12.
”In my conversations with Fulton County investigators, I have been informed Sen. Graham is neither a subject nor target of the investigation, simply a witness,” said Graham’s lawyers said Austin, a former assistant U.S. attorney, and Daniel, a former U.S. attorney for South Carolina.
Graham, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and was its chairman until February 2021, called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger twice after the November 2020 election to ask whether he could throw out mail-in ballots, which were reported overwhelmingly for President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump.
On the call, Graham allegedly asked Raffensperger about signatures that did not match on absentee ballots and whether all mail-in ballots in counties with a high rate of mismatched signatures could be thrown out. The subpoena says Graham asked Raffensperger and his staff “about reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome” for Trump.
Biden won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes. Trump has, however, continued to falsely assert that the 2020 election was stolen. His own attorney general, Bill Barr, has refuted those claims, repeating as recently to a U.S. House committee investigating the Capitol riot that there was no evidence that widespread fraud took place.
“Sen. Graham was well within his rights to discuss with state officials the processes and procedures around administering elections,” Daniel and Austin said in a statement. “Should it stand, the subpoena issued (Tuesday) would erode the constitutional balance of power and the ability of a member of Congress to do their job. Sen. Graham plans to go to court, challenge the subpoena, and expects to prevail.”
Graham wasn’t the only Trump ally subpoenaed by the Fulton County grand jury Tuesday.
Trump advisors Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Cleta Mitchell, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and attorney and podcast host Jacki Pick Deason also have been ordered to testify July 12.
Graham’s attorneys are from the high-profile Nelson Mullins law firm.
Daniel served as a U.S. attorney for South Carolina under former President George H.W. Bush, and was prosecutor in the State House’s multiyear corruption case, coined Operation Lost Trust. Austin previously worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in South Carolina, and has worked on civil and criminal cases.
The next step will be to deliver documents to a prosecutor where each possible witness lives so that they can be shown to a local judge to hold a hearing. Should the judge decide that the person is a “material and necessary witness,” and that the travel would not cause undue burden to a potential witness, the judge would issue a subpoena to compel the person to testify before the special grand jury in Fulton County.
Anyone who who fails to comply with a subpoena can be found in contempt.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
