ATLANTA — A Fulton County judge ordered U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to testify before a special grand jury in Fulton County next month.
Graham is one of eight people jury members subpoenaed last week. Graham said he would fight the subpoena.
On Monday, the judge declared Graham a “necessary witness” to the investigation.
This is another step in a long legal process of getting Graham down from Washington to testify.
That new order says the grand jury needs to hear about Graham’s two alleged phone calls to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger.
In the order, Fulton County Superior Judge Robert McBurney said the “court finds that Lindsey Graham is a necessary and material witness” in the special grand jury’s investigation into potential criminal interference in Georgia’s 2020 election.
The new order also requires Graham to come testify in August.
The grand jury subpoenaed Graham at the same time it also subpoenaed former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and others who were at a December 2020 state Senate subcommittee hearing.
“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor. Can you talk about what you’re going to testify about today?” Channel 2 political reporter Richard Elliot asked Giuliani at the time.
“Not right now,” Giuliani said.
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It was there that Giuliani and the others first made accusations of massive voter fraud in Fulton County — accusations proved false by multiple state and federal investigations.
But the new order said the grand jury wants to find out more about two phone calls allegedly made by Graham to Raffensperger asking him to begin “reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump.”
Graham is fighting the subpoena and last week accused Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of playing politics and working with the Jan. 6 committee.
“My inquiry and the Jan. 6 inquiry are not one and the same,” Willis said in an exclusive interview last week.
Willis said she hoped Graham would change his mind and come testify willingly.
“It is my hope that Sen. Graham will have a moment of quiet reflection and decide to bring truthful testimony before this grand jury that wants to hear from him on some very important issues,” Willis said.
Graham is ordered to testify Aug. 2. But this all still has to work its way through courts in Washington, D.C.
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