Georgia prosecutor tells Supreme Court: Don’t let Lindsey Graham avoid testifying in 2020 probe

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Lindsey Graham MUST testify in criminal investigation into attempt to reverse 2020 election, Georgia prosecutor tells Supreme Court

  • Lindsey Graham has taken his case all the way to the Supreme Court
  • He’s trying to avoid testifying in a Georgia probe into meddling in the 2020 election
  • Investigators want to know about his contacts with the Trump team
  • On Thursday, prosecutor Fani Willis filed her case in court
  • She said Graham’s argument had no chance of success
  • And she said any delay would be “inevitably damaging” to the investigation

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The Georgia State Attorney investigating possible illegal attempts to influence the 2020 election urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to deny Senator Lindsey Graham’s attempt to avoid testifying before a grand jury.

The state was one of the main battlefields where activists loyal to then-President Donald Trump tried to undo his defeat.

Investigators want details of Graham’s contacts with the Trump campaign, including two phone calls. An election official said Graham had urged him to reconsider the way absentee ballots were handled.

In a 27-page dossier, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said granting Graham’s request to block a subpoena would undermine the work of the grand jury.

“If the senator is granted his stay, the special purpose grand jury will be indefinitely barred from pursuing unique information, analyzing any evidence, or using the senator’s testimony to explore additional routes of valid investigation.” , Willis and her team wrote.

South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham must testify before a special grand jury investigating whether Donald Trump tried to reverse his 2020 loss in Georgia

Prosecutors want to speak to Lindsey Graham about his talks with Donald Trump (above) and his allies in the wake of the 2020 election

Willis said Graham’s attempt to avoid testifying was unsuccessful and would be “inevitably damaging” to the investigation.

And she said lower courts had already protected him from answering questions about his official duties as a senator.

Lower courts that ordered the South Carolina Republican to testify already sued Graham in August to block the subpoena. He argued that he was protected by the Constitution’s speech or debate clause, which prevents members of Congress from being questioned about their work in court.

However, that was rejected first by the US District Court of North Georgia and then last week by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Senator Graham has not shown that this approach violates his rights under the Speech and Debate Clause,” the appeals court said last week.

That prompted Graham to go all the way to the Supreme Court.

On Monday, Judge Clarence Thomas temporarily blocked Graham’s testimony so that he could fully consider his case.

Willis has said she wants to question the Republican senator from South Carolina about phone calls he made with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top election official, in the weeks following the 2020 election.

Raffensperger has said he interpreted questions about whether he could reject certain absentee ballots as a suggestion to reject legally cast votes.

Graham has said that as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was interested in cases of potential voter fraud. He has denied every mistake.

Conservative Judge Clarence Thomas (right) temporarily blocked South Carolina Republican testimony from grand jury

Lindsey Graham has long been a Donald Trump ally – above the two men leaving Marine One in Texas on a 2021 trip to the southern border

“I chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and had to vote on the certification of an election,” Graham told reporters this summer. ‘This is ridiculous. This weaponization of the law must stop. So I will use the courts. We will go as far as necessary and do whatever it takes to ensure that people like me can do their jobs without fear of a prosecutor coming after you.”

He had challenged his subpoena, saying his position as a US senator protects him from having to testify in the state investigation.

Willis also wants to talk to the senator about talks he had with the Trump campaign on the heels of Election Day in 2020, when Trump and his allies tried to reverse his loss.

Graham has been an ally of the former president for a long time.

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