Judge again rejects Graham bid to throw out subpoena in Atl..Trump probe

Source: Politico | September 1, 2022 | Kyle Cheney

Judge again rejects Graham bid to throw out subpoena in Atlanta-area Trump probe

District Court Judge Leigh Martin May said she was “unpersuaded by the breadth of Senator Graham’s argument.”

A federal judge has for the second time rejected Sen. Lindsey Graham’s effort to block a grand jury subpoena issued by the Atlanta-area district attorney investigating former President Donald Trump and his allies’ effort to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

In a 23-page order, U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May ruled that the South Carolina Republican’s claim to be immune from such questioning — thanks to the protections of the so-called speech or debate clause of the Constitution — is not as sweeping as Graham claimed it to be.

Graham, a close Trump ally, had centered his argument on concerns that District Attorney Fani Willis intends to question him about two phone calls he held with Georgia election officials in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Those calls, Graham contends, were primarily about potential legislative work to remedy election policies and to inform his upcoming vote on Jan. 6, 2021, when Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 election.

As a result, Graham said, the speech or debate clause prohibits him from being questioned about what he has characterized as official legislative work.

But May noted that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his deputy Gabriel Sterling recalled the discussions with Graham differently, suggesting he had cajoled them to change their procedures in a way that could potentially influence the 2020 results after votes had been cast, not as part of some forward-looking policy mission.

“[T]he Court does not find that it can simply accept Senator Graham’s sweeping and conclusory characterizations of the calls and ignore other objective facts in the record that call Senator Graham’s characterizations into question,” May wrote.

She said she was “unpersuaded by the breadth of Senator Graham’s argument.”

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