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      In Trump Case, Texas Creates a Headache for Georgia Prosecutors

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      A Texas court is thwarting Georgia prosecutors’ attempts to compel testimony from Texas witnesses as part of a criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump.ATLANTA — Witnesses called to testify in a Georgia criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his allies have not always come willingly.A number of them have fought their subpoenas in their home-state courts, only to have local judges order them to cooperate. That was the case with Trump-aligned lawyers John Eastman in New Mexico, Jenna Ellis in Colorado and Rudolph W. Giuliani in New York; Mr. Giuliani was also told by an Atlanta judge that he could come “on a train, on a bus or Uber” after his lawyers said a health condition prevented him from flying.But the state of Texas is proving to be an outlier, creating serious headaches for Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, who is leading the investigation into efforts by Mr. Trump and others to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.Last month, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, thwarted Ms. Willis’s effort to force Jacki L. Pick, a Republican lawyer and pundit, to testify in Atlanta, saying that her subpoena had essentially expired. But in a pair of opinions, a majority of the judges on the all-Republican court went further, indicating that they believed the Georgia special grand jury conducting the inquiry may not have the legal standing to compel testimony from Texas witnesses.After the court’s ruling, two other pro-Trump Texans, Sidney Powell and Phil Waldron, did not show up for their scheduled court dates in Atlanta. And while there may be workarounds for Ms. Willis — experts say the Atlanta prosecutors could go to Texas to depose the witnesses — it looks to some Georgia observers like a pattern of Texas Republicans meddling with Georgia when it comes to the fate of Mr. Trump.Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, has subpoenaed prominent lawyers of Mr. Trump, including Rudolph Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Sidney Powell.Audra Melton for The New York Times“It does seem like there’s a substantial resistance from Texas and Texans to forcing people to cooperate in ways that we haven’t seen from any other jurisdiction,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta.Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has also weighed in, filing an amicus brief late last month along with other Republican attorneys general that supported efforts by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to avoid testifying in the Atlanta investigation. Mr. Paxton, in a statement accompanying his brief, assailed the investigation for what he said were its “repeated attempts to ignore” the Constitution.Mr. Paxton, who is running for re-election this year despite having been indicted and arrested on criminal securities-fraud charges, has sought to intervene in Georgia before. After the 2020 election, he sued Georgia and three other swing states that Mr. Trump lost, in a far-fetched attempt to get the Supreme Court to delay the certification of their presidential electors.By refusing to compel the three Texas residents to testify in Georgia, the court is breaking with a long tradition of cooperation between states in producing subpoenaed witnesses. All 50 states have versions of what is known as the Uniform Act, which was created in the 1930s to establish a framework for one state to compel testimony from a witness residing in another.Ms. Willis, in a statement, said, “We expect every state to abide by the Constitutional requirement to ensure that full faith and credit is given by them to the laws and proceedings of other states. That requirement includes abiding by the interstate compact to produce witnesses for other states’ judicial proceedings.”Ms. Willis is weighing potential conspiracy and racketeering charges, among others, and is examining the phone call that Mr. Trump made on Jan. 2, 2021, to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, imploring him to “find” nearly 12,000 votes, or enough to reverse the outcome of the Georgia vote.On Friday, her office filed paperwork seeking to compel testimony from three more witnesses, The Associated Press reported: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as well as Michael T. Flynn, a former national security adviser, and Eric Herschmann, a lawyer who worked in the Trump White House.Nearly 20 people, including Mr. Giuliani, have already been informed that they are targets of Ms. Willis’s investigation and could face criminal charges. Ms. Pick, a radio host and former lawyer for House Republicans whose husband, Doug Deason, is a prominent Republican donor and Dallas power broker, has also been told she is among the targets of the investigation, according to one of her lawyers, Geoffrey Harper.She played a central role in one of two December 2020 hearings before Georgia lawmakers that were organized by Mr. Giuliani, who advanced a number of falsehoods about the election. During a hearing before the Georgia Senate, Ms. Pick narrated a video feed that showed ballot counting taking place at a downtown Atlanta arena where voting was held.Jacki L. Pick played a central role in one of two December 2020 hearings before Georgia lawmakers that were organized by Mr. Giuliani.Rebecca Wright/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via APAt the hearing, Ms. Pick said the video “goes to” what she called “fraud or misrepresentation,” and the implication of her presentation was that something improper was taking place. She was immediately challenged by Democrats at the hearing. The office of Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, has also long refuted the idea that anything nefarious took place in the counting of votes at the arena.Mr. Harper said his client had done nothing wrong.“She didn’t suggest there was fraud, she didn’t suggest something untoward had happened,” he said. “She simply said here is a video, here’s what it shows, we’d like to investigate further. Her testimony is the most innocuous thing you’ve ever seen.”Fulton County prosecutors are also seeking the testimony of Ms. Powell, who like Ms. Pick lives in the Dallas area. She is a lawyer and conspiracy theorist who played a high-profile role in efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power. In Georgia, she helped put together a team of Trump allies and consultants who gained access to a wide range of voter data and voting equipment in rural Coffee County; they are currently being investigated by Mr. Raffensperger’s office, as well as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Ms. Willis’s office.In an email, Ms. Powell said, “GA has no need to subpoena me. My involvement in GA issues has been significantly misrepresented by the press including your outlet.”She did not answer questions about her legal strategy with respect to Fulton County’s attempt to make her testify, or say whether she had been informed that she is a target of the investigation or merely a witness.Mr. Waldron, a former Army colonel with a background in information warfare, also advanced a number of conspiracy theories after the 2020 election, and he made a virtual appearance at one of the legislative hearings in Georgia. He could not be reached for comment. He lives outside of Austin, Texas, and the district attorney in the county where he lives said he was not aware of any legal challenge to Ms. Willis’s effort to compel Mr. Waldron’s testimony.Phil Waldron, a former Army colonel, made a virtual appearance at a legislative hearing in Georgia after the 2020 election.Aram Roston/ReutersThe body overseeing the Fulton County investigation is known under Georgia law as a special purpose grand jury. It can sit for longer periods than a regular grand jury and has the ability to subpoena targets of the investigation to provide testimony, though it lacks the power to indict. Once a special grand jury issues a report and recommendations, indictments can be sought from a regular grand jury.A majority of judges on the Texas court expressed the view that the Georgia grand jury was not a proper criminal grand jury because it lacks indictment authority, and thus likely lacks standing to compel the appearance of witnesses from Texas.“I am inclined to find such a body is not the kind of grand jury envisioned by the Uniform Act,” wrote Judge Kevin Yeary. “And if I may be wrong about that, I would place the burden to show otherwise on the requesting state.”His view was essentially backed by four other judges on the nine-member court.The question of whether the Fulton County special grand jury is civil or criminal in nature came up in late August, when lawyers for Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, unsuccessfully sought to quash a subpoena demanding that he testify. The governor’s lawyers argued that the special grand jury was civil, and that Mr. Kemp would not have to testify in a civil action under the doctrine of sovereign immunity.But in a written order on Aug. 29, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert C.I. McBurney rejected the idea that the special grand jury was civil, noting that none of the paperwork establishing the grand jury mentioned that it would be considering civil actions.“That a special purpose grand jury cannot issue an indictment does not diminish the criminal nature of its work or somehow transmogrify that criminal investigation into a civil one,” Judge McBurney wrote. “Police officers, too, lack the authority to indict anyone, but their investigations are plainly criminal.”Ronald Wright, a law professor at Wake Forest University who studies the work of criminal prosecutors, said that the Texas court’s decision, based on its interpretation of the special grand jury’s purpose, appeared unusual. “I haven’t heard anything about one state saying categorically, ‘No we read your statute, that doesn’t apply here, you can’t get this witness,’” he said.The nine members of Texas’ Court of Criminal Appeals are elected and are all Republicans. But they have not always been in sync with Gov. Greg Abbott and Mr. Paxton, both vociferous Trump supporters. Mr. Harper said his reading of Georgia law is that the special grand jury is a civil proceeding. He believes that witnesses living in other states can challenge efforts to compel their testimony, at least if it is in person.“Civil cases can get testimony from out-of-state witnesses, but they have to do it by deposition,” he said. “I believe that if pressed on the issue, it would be a unanimous ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that a special grand jury in Georgia cannot subpoena live testimony from witnesses outside of Georgia.” More

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      Republicans on the Defensive on Abortion and Other Social Issues

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      Republican missteps have helped to spotlight the party’s divisions on abortion and same-sex marriage, two issues on which their base is out of step with the general public.WASHINGTON — Republicans have perfected the art of keeping the heat on Democrats on the searing social issues of the day, but this election year, it seems to be Republicans who are getting scorched.During a midterm cycle that seemed tailor-made for significant Republican gains in the House and Senate, Democrats have managed to grab the advantage on abortion rights and same-sex marriage, steering the conversation away from topics that are thornier for them, such as inflation and crime.They have had substantial help from Republican miscues, confounding Democrats who typically expect more craftiness from across the aisle.“They can’t seem to get out of their own way,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, one of the Democratic incumbents on the ballot in November.One reason for their struggles is that a large swath of the Republican base has fallen out of step with broader public opinion on these issues. Most Americans favor same-sex marriage rights and at least some abortion rights, but many Republican voters continue to oppose same-sex marriage and want strict abortion limits if not an outright ban. The disconnect makes navigating those topics treacherous for Republicans, who are faced with the choice of turning off their core supporters or alienating the independents whose support they need to prevail in November.The trouble shows.On Thursday, Democrats announced they would postpone until after the election a vote to protect same-sex marriages because its backers had failed to secure enough Republican support to overcome a G.O.P. filibuster.It was an intriguing decision by Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, who is not usually inclined to pass up an opportunity to inflict political pain on the opposition. But he acquiesced to a request from bipartisan backers of the legislation for more time — and a less charged environment.Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, decided to postpone a vote on legislation to protect same-sex marriages at the request of its bipartisan backers.Al Drago for The New York TimesWhile it spared Republicans what was looking like a difficult moment, damage had already been done.The threatened filibuster made it clear that some Republicans weren’t comfortable voting in favor of same-sex marriage before the midterm election, and others didn’t want to go on record against it at an inopportune time. Either way, Republicans looked shaky on an issue that most Americans consider to be long resolved.The Republican posture in the Senate was sufficient to prompt hundreds of prominent Republicans, including Senate candidates in Pennsylvania and Colorado, to sign a letter calling for passage of the same-sex marriage legislation to “reaffirm that marriage for gay and lesbian couples is settled law.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.On abortion, Republicans knew that the Supreme Court ruling striking down Roe v. Wade would complicate their push to reclaim Congress, and they sought to quickly rid themselves of the problem. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said a G.O.P.-controlled Congress could pursue a nationwide abortion ban, but Republicans soft-pedaled that idea and instead chose to emphasize that the ruling returned the question of abortion rights to each state, where they said it belonged. Case closed.Enter Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who surprised his colleagues on Tuesday by rolling out his plan, backed by anti-abortion groups, to enact a nationwide ban on abortions after 15 weeks, which would impose federal restrictions on blue and purple states that have not joined the post-Roe race to enact strict new limits on the procedure.Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, introduced a bill that would implement a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. “When the dust settles, this will all make sense,” he said.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesTo cringes from many of his Republican colleagues, Mr. Graham declared that the coming election was essentially a referendum on abortion — and that if his party won control of Congress, it would, in fact, consider a ban..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Despite their determination to shift the issue away from the Capitol, Senate Republicans — and their midterm candidates — suddenly found themselves forced to answer whether they backed such a prohibition, potentially driving off suburban women who will be crucial to the election outcome. Again, some Republican lawmakers and candidates sought to distance themselves from the proposal.Privately, many of Mr. Graham’s colleagues wanted to throttle him. Others were more diplomatic.“I didn’t know anything about it,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. “I don’t know what his motivation was.”Democrats could not believe their good fortune. On the day new inflation numbers were driving down the stock market, Mr. Graham had turned the conversation back to a topic that has so far proved advantageous for Democrats in the aftermath of the court ruling, which Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said had already shocked much of the nation.“Republicans, having succeeded in putting in a conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade, are proposing to go even farther,” Mr. Coons said of the Graham legislation.Mr. Graham insists he will be proved right in the end.“I think that my position is reasonable and logical and over time, I feel good about it winning the day,” he said. “When the dust settles, this will all make sense.”Until then, Democrats are gleefully running ads portraying Republicans as reactionaries.Republicans were also in danger of running afoul of public opinion on another volatile social issue — immigration — after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida sent air charters of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, the island retreat in the blue state of Massachusetts. The stunt was aimed at highlighting the uneven impact of federal border policies, and had many Republicans celebrating having steered the campaign conversation to the dysfunctional immigration system.But it also risked spurring a backlash. While polls show that most Republicans draw a hard line on immigration, they also find that the majority of Americans regard immigration as a positive and are particularly sympathetic to refugees, suggesting that the G.O.P. stunt — which stranded vulnerable people in a place unprepared for their arrival — could also prompt outrage among voters who regard it as cruel.Republicans concede they could do without the turmoil surrounding the abortion rights and same-sex marriage battles, but contend that the focus on those issues is mainly a Washington preoccupation.“Could we do without the distractions?” asked Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota. “Perhaps. But I think the voters are still focused on the main things.”“At the end of the day, I think it is still the economy, stupid,” he added, quoting the famous line from Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign. “Everybody is still paying too much for groceries and other things, and that’s what the election is going to be about.”Republicans are also trying to regain the upper hand on abortion, portraying Democrats as extremists who don’t support any restrictions at all, a position that is also at odds with those of many Americans.“The Democrat position used to be Roe v. Wade,” said Mr. Cornyn. “Now it is abortion without limitations up to the time of delivery. It is just shocking to me. Most people’s views on this are more nuanced. They may be pro-choice but would say there is a limit.”Democrats have not explicitly proposed such a sweeping policy, but they have put forward legislation that would protect abortion access nationwide by prohibiting a long list of abortion restrictions, including some enacted after Roe was decided in 1973. It failed in May when Senate Republicans, joined by one Democrat, blocked it.Mr. Cornyn joined the Republican chorus in saying that the economy, border security and rising crime would remain the decisive topics in the election, even as he conceded that Democrats had been successful in stoking voter enthusiasm on the social issues.“Inflation is not going away, the Fed is going to raise interest rates more,” Mr. Cornyn said. “People are still going to be grumpy.”Democrats, more accustomed to being on the losing end of the culture clash, say Republicans are misreading where the public stands on such issues and will pay a price for it.“Republicans are just way out of the American mainstream,” said Mr. Blumenthal. “On a woman’s right to make a personal decision, individual women may make very different decisions. But the vast majority think they ought to be trusted to make those decisions — not some government official.” More

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      Judge Says Lindsey Graham Can Be Questioned About Election Activity

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      Prosecutors in Atlanta have called the Republican senator to testify before a special grand jury investigating efforts by Donald J. Trump and his allies to overturn his election loss.ATLANTA — In a setback for Senator Lindsey Graham, a federal judge ruled on Thursday that prosecutors can ask him about certain elements of his November 2020 phone calls with Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state. Mr. Raffensperger has said that in those calls, Mr. Graham suggested rejecting mail-in votes in the presidential election from counties with high rates of questionable signatures.The order from U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May must now be taken up for consideration by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. It is the latest twist in a protracted legal drama in which Mr. Graham has sought to avoid appearing before a special grand jury in Atlanta that is investigating efforts by Donald J. Trump and his allies to overturn Mr. Trump’s narrow loss in the state in 2020.Mr. Graham’s phone calls to Mr. Raffensperger were followed, weeks later, by a call from Mr. Trump himself, who asked Mr. Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes to put him over the top.Mr. Graham has argued that he should not have to comply at all with a subpoena to testify before the special grand jury. His lawyers raised issues of sovereign immunity and the fact that Mr. Graham is “a high-ranking government official.”Judge May rejected those arguments in a ruling in mid-August. But a week later, the appellate court asked the judge to determine whether limits should be applied to Mr. Graham’s testimony, based on the U.S. Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause, which protects lawmakers from being questioned about their legitimate legislative functions.Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationCard 1 of 5Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationAn immediate legal threat to Trump. More

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      Lindsey Graham Resists Testifying in Trump Investigation in Georgia

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      ATLANTA — Six days after major news organizations declared Donald J. Trump the loser of the 2020 presidential election, his allies were applying a desperate full-court press in an effort to turn his defeat around, particularly in Georgia.The pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell went on television claiming that there was abundant evidence of foreign election meddling that never ultimately materialized. Another lawyer, L. Lin Wood, filed a lawsuit seeking to block the certification of Georgia’s election results.That same day, Nov. 13, 2020, Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican and one of Mr. Trump’s most ardent supporters, made a phone call that left Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, immediately alarmed. Mr. Graham, he said, had asked if there was a legal way, using the state courts, to toss out all mail-in votes from counties with high rates of questionable signatures.The call would eventually trigger an ethics complaint, demands from the left for Mr. Graham’s resignation and a legal drama that is culminating only now, nearly two years later, as the veteran lawmaker fights to avoid testifying before an Atlanta special grand jury that is investigating election interference by Mr. Trump and his supporters.Mr. Graham has put together a high-powered legal team, which includes Don F. McGahn II, a White House counsel under Mr. Trump. While Mr. Graham’s lawyers say that they have been told that he is only a witness — not a target of the investigation — that could change as new evidence arises in the case, which is being led by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga. Her efforts to compel Mr. Graham to testify have been aided by legal filings from a number of high-profile, outside attorneys, including William F. Weld, a Trump critic and former Republican governor of Massachusetts.Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, center, during a hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesUnderscoring the risks for Mr. Graham, lawyers for 11 people who have been designated as targets who could face charges in the case have said that they were previously told that their clients were only “witnesses, not subjects or targets,” according to court filings.On Sunday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit temporarily blocked Mr. Graham from testifying and directed a lower court to determine whether he was entitled to a modification of the subpoena based on constitutional protections afforded to members of Congress. After that, the appeals court said, it will take up the issue “for further consideration.” The matter is now back before Leigh Martin May, a Federal District Court judge who already rejected Mr. Graham’s attempt to entirely avoid testifying; she asked the sides to wrap up their latest round of legal filings by next Wednesday. It seems increasingly likely that Mr. Graham will testify next month.Ms. Willis has said that she is weighing a broad array of criminal charges in her investigation, including racketeering and conspiracy. She has already informed at least 18 people that they are targets, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer. Mr. Giuliani fought to avoid testifying in person but was forced to appear before the grand jury last week.Regarding Mr. Graham, Ms. Willis’s office is seeking to learn more about his role in Mr. Trump’s post-election strategy, and who he spoke to on the Trump campaign team before or after he called Mr. Raffensperger. While Mr. Trump assailed Mr. Raffensperger on Twitter as a “so-called Republican” on the same day as that call, Mr. Graham told CNN that the former president did not encourage him to place the call.Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationCard 1 of 5Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationAn immediate legal threat to Trump. More

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      Federal Appeals Court Halts Graham Testimony Before Atlanta Grand Jury

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      The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit temporarily blocked Senator Lindsey Graham from testifying before a special grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.ATLANTA — A federal appeals court temporarily blocked Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, on Sunday from testifying in the investigation into efforts by President Donald J. Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. The appeals court instructed a lower court to determine whether Mr. Graham should be exempt from answering certain kinds of questions, given his status as a federal lawmaker.The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit gives a temporary reprieve to Mr. Graham, who has been fighting prosecutors’ efforts to bring him before a special grand jury. After a protracted bout of legal sparring, Mr. Graham, at the end of last week, appeared to have failed in his efforts to remain above the matter and had been expected to testify behind closed doors on Tuesday in a downtown Atlanta courthouse.Mr. Graham has argued, among other things, that he should be exempt from testifying under the U.S. Constitution’s speech and debate clause, which prohibits asking lawmakers about their legitimate legislative functions. The appeals court laid out further steps on Sunday that must be taken before Mr. Graham gives any testimony.First, the court ruled, a Federal District Court must determine whether Mr. Graham is “entitled to a partial quashal or modification of the subpoena to appear before the special purpose grand jury” based on the speech and debate clause issue. After that, the appeals court said, it will take up the issue “for further consideration.”Lawyers for Mr. Graham have said that he was informed by Fulton County prosecutors that he was a witness, not a target, in the case.Even so, prosecutors want Mr. Graham’s testimony for a number of reasons. Among them are two phone calls that he made just after the 2020 election to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, in which Mr. Graham inquired about ways to help Mr. Trump by invalidating certain mail-in votes.They also want him to answer other questions about what they have called “the multistate, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.” Prosecutors have said in court documents that they expect Mr. Graham’s testimony “to reveal additional sources of information” related to their investigation.This month, Mr. Graham called the effort to make him testify “ridiculous” and a “weaponization of the law.”“We will go as far as we need to go and do whatever needs to be done to make sure that people like me can do their jobs without fear of some county prosecutor coming after you,” he said.The speech and debate clause appears in Article 1, Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution, and states that members of Congress “shall not be questioned in any other place” for “any speech or debate in either house.” The framers of the Constitution wrote it with the idea of protecting the independence of the legislative branch from other branches, and were influenced by the evolution of an independent parliament in England.Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationCard 1 of 5Understand Georgia’s Trump Election InvestigationAn immediate legal threat to Trump. More

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      Graham Ordered to Appear Before Atlanta Grand Jury Investigating Trump

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      A federal judge declined to stay her order that Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina appear on Tuesday before a special grand jury in Atlanta.ATLANTA — A federal judge on Friday turned down a request by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to avoid testifying next week before a special grand jury investigating attempts by former President Trump and his allies to overturn his November 2020 election loss in Georgia.The order, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May, means that Mr. Graham, a South Carolina Republican and staunch Trump ally, is on track to appear in a closed-door session of the special grand jury on Tuesday at a downtown Atlanta courthouse. However, Mr. Graham already has taken his case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which has the ability to step in to postpone his appearance.Judge May had earlier issued an order forcing the senator to give testimony, but Mr. Graham asked the judge to stay the order while he pursued his appeal in the case. On Friday, the judge wrote that “the public interest would not be served” by granting a stay and delaying Mr. Graham’s testimony.“In this context, the public interest is well-served when a lawful investigation aimed at uncovering the facts and circumstances of alleged attempts to disrupt or influence Georgia’s elections is allowed to proceed without unnecessary encumbrances,” Judge May, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, wrote.Mr. Graham is one of a number of Republican witnesses who have fought subpoenas to appear in person before the grand jury. So far, most have lost.Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, spent hours before the same special grand jury earlier this week, after initially saying that health conditions prevented him from flying to Atlanta from New York. Two other Trump team lawyers who unsuccessfully fought their subpoenas, Jenna Ellis and John Eastman, are scheduled to appear before the grand jury before the end of the month.And a hearing in Fulton County Superior Court has been scheduled for Thursday to consider Gov. Brian Kemp’s efforts to quash a subpoena compelling his testimony. In a motion this week, the Georgia Republican argued that he had been mistreated by the office of Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, and claimed that she had subpoenaed him “for improper political purposes.”Lawyers for Mr. Graham have said that he was informed by Fulton County prosecutors that he was a witness, not a target, in the case.Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, spent hours before the special grand jury in Atlanta this week.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesEven so, prosecutors want Mr. Graham’s testimony for a number of reasons. Among them are two phone calls that he placed just after the 2020 election to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which Mr. Graham inquired about ways to help Mr. Trump by invalidating certain mail-in votes.They also want to ask him other questions about what they have called “the multi-state, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.” Prosecutors have said in court documents that they expect Mr. Graham’s testimony “to reveal additional sources of information” related to their investigation.Mr. Graham’s lawyers have argued, among other things, that he should be shielded from testimony under the Constitution’s speech and debate clause, which bars questioning of members of Congress about their legitimate legislative activities. They argue that he made the phone calls to Mr. Raffensperger as part of his work as a senator and a former chair of the Judiciary Committee.But they were unable to persuade the judge that they had enough of a case to earn a stay. She noted that there were “multiple areas of proper inquiry” in the case that were not related to Mr. Graham’s work as a senator.And the judge agreed with Ms. Willis’s office that waiting for his appeal to be resolved could cause serious delays and potentially have a negative effect on the special grand jury’s work — particularly when it came to revealing “new categories of information and witnesses, thereby compounding the total delay and hampering the grand jury as it attempts to carry out its investigation expeditiously.” More

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      Rudy Giuliani to Face Atlanta Grand Jury Investigating Trump Today

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      The former New York mayor has been told that he is a target in the investigation concerning whether Donald J. Trump and his associates tried to illegally influence the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.ATLANTA — When Rudolph W. Giuliani traveled to Georgia’s capital city in December 2020 to make fanciful public accusations of election fraud on behalf of President Donald J. Trump, he was greeted in a manner befitting the emissary of the most powerful man on earth, and posed for photos with admirers and sympathetic state politicians.On Wednesday morning, Mr. Giuliani was back in Atlanta, this time under very different circumstances.The former New York City mayor, who was serving as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer after the November 2020 election, showed up shortly before 8:30 a.m. to appear before a Fulton County special grand jury conducting a criminal investigation into postelection meddling by Mr. Trump and his associates. Local prosecutors informed Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers this week that he was a “target” in that investigation, meaning that his indictment was possible.Instead of visiting the elegant gold-domed State Capitol — where he and a pro-Trump group made a number of false claims about election fraud, raising concerns about untrustworthy voting machines and suitcases of illegal ballots — Mr. Giuliani appeared a few blocks away at the Fulton County court complex, where Atlantans go to resolve real estate disputes, file for divorce or be arraigned for armed robberies.Mr. Giuliani arrived in a black Yukon Denali with his lawyer, Robert Costello, and Vernon Jones, a prominent Trump supporter in Georgia and a vociferous promoter of the unfounded idea that Mr. Trump won the state in 2020.Asked what he expected to talk about, Mr. Giuliani told a large crush of reporters outside the courthouse, “They’ll ask the questions, and we’ll see.”Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis has asked the F.B.I. to provide stepped-up security at the downtown courthouse, after Mr. Trump called prosecutors like her “vicious, horrible people.”Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers fought to keep him from having to travel to Atlanta. Instead, they offered to have him appear via videoconference, and argued that he was too feeble to travel by air after having a pair of cardiac stents inserted in early July. But Judge Robert C.I. McBurney ruled last week that Mr. Giuliani could always travel “on a train, on a bus or Uber.” On Monday, a lawyer for Mr. Giuliani declined to say how his client planned to get to Atlanta from New York.Mr. Giuliani is not the only high-profile member of Mr. Trump’s team who is less than thrilled about having to show up in Georgia to be asked about what prosecutors call “a multistate, coordinated plan by the Trump campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was ordered by a federal judge on Monday to appear before the special grand jury.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesSenator Lindsey Graham was ordered by a federal judge on Monday to appear before the special grand jury, after Mr. Graham tried to find a way out of it. Mr. Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said he would take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, arguing that under the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution, his status as a senator shielded him from having to testify.“This weaponization of the law needs to stop,” Mr. Graham said in a statement. “So I will use the courts. We will go as far as we need to go, and do whatever needs to be done, to make sure that people like me can do their jobs without fear of some county prosecutor coming after you.”Two other lawyers on the Trump team, Jenna Ellis of Colorado and John Eastman of New Mexico, were scheduled to have hearings in their home states after Ms. Willis’s office filed “petitions for certification of need for testimony” concerning them. Such petitions are typically filed only when a potential witness refuses to testify or cannot be reached by prosecutors.In Ms. Ellis’s hearing on Tuesday, a court in Colorado ordered her to appear and testify before the special grand jury in Atlanta on Aug. 25. Mr. Eastman is expected to appear at a court hearing in Santa Fe on Aug. 26.It seems unlikely that Mr. Giuliani, 78, will say much to the grand jury when he is called to testify behind closed doors. “I just can’t imagine, at this point, him cooperating,” said Michael J. Moore, an Atlanta lawyer who served as a U.S. attorney in Georgia. “He’s got several avenues that he can take. One is to claim that he can’t answer questions because of attorney-client privilege. Another is because he’s been identified as a target, and he’s going to invoke the Fifth Amendment.”Still, the visit may be of use to the prosecutors leading the Georgia investigation, which Ms. Willis has said may result in racketeering or conspiracy charges against several defendants.Though it is not clear what charges Mr. Giuliani might face, witnesses who have already gone before the grand jury have said that the jurors were particularly interested in two appearances by Mr. Giuliani in December 2020 before state legislative panels, where he made a number of false assertions about election fraud.Unlike a trial jury, which would be instructed not to make any inferences about a criminal defendant’s silence, a grand jury is allowed to draw its own conclusions when witnesses or targets invoke their Fifth Amendment rights in declining to answer questions. (The special grand jury in Georgia cannot indict anyone; its job is to write a report saying whether the jurors believe crimes occurred. A regular grand jury could then issue indictments based on the special jury’s report.)Page Pate, a veteran Atlanta trial lawyer, said that prosecutors may also try to argue to a judge that attorney-client privilege does not apply to some questions asked of Mr. Giuliani, because of the “crime fraud exception” to the privilege, which essentially states that lawyers cannot be shielded from testifying if they helped their clients commit a crime.Even if Mr. Giuliani is successful in dodging questions much of the time, Mr. Pate said, important information about the scope of the scheme to reverse Mr. Trump’s election loss might still be divulged in the course of questioning.“Why not just grill him and see what happens?” Mr. Pate said.Outside the grand jury room, Mr. Giuliani has been talkative. In an interview on Monday with Newsmax, a far-right news channel, he said the Fulton County inquiry amounted to a “desecration of the Sixth Amendment,” which guarantees the right to a public trial and a lawyer, among other things.“I was his lawyer of record in that case,” Mr. Giuliani said, referring to Mr. Trump and his concerns about the election results. “The statements that I made are either attorney-client privileged, because they were between me and him, or they were being made on his behalf in order to defend him.”In total, 18 people are known to have been identified as targets of the investigation, including 16 pro-Trump “alternate electors” in Georgia who were sworn in on the same day as the state’s legitimate presidential electors. On Tuesday afternoon, 11 of the alternate electors began an effort to potentially disqualify Ms. Willis and her office from handling the case — an attempt connected to Ms. Willis’s previous disqualification from one portion of the investigation.In July, Judge McBurney prohibited Ms. Willis and her office from developing a criminal case against Georgia State Senator Burt Jones, a Trump ally and alternate elector, citing a conflict of interest — namely, that Ms. Willis, a Democrat, had headlined a fund-raiser for a fellow Democrat running against Mr. Jones in the race for lieutenant governor.Judge McBurney ruled that the decision to bring charges against Mr. Jones must be left to a different prosecutor’s office.On Tuesday, a lawyer for 11 of the alternate electors asked the court to disqualify Ms. Willis and her office from the entire proceeding, or at least to let the 11 electors be part of the “carve out” affecting Mr. Jones, on the grounds that all of the electors “have significant roles” in the state Republican Party, and that most of them had supported Mr. Jones’s campaign for lieutenant governor. 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