Rudy Giuliani was ordered on Wednesday to testify before a Fulton County special grand jury next month in its investigation into former President Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia.
The order was made after the former New York City mayor didn’t show up to a hearing in his hometown to challenge the subpoena.
A Wednesday court filing indicated Giuliani did not appear before New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber last week to make his case against the Georgia subpoena, which deemed him as a “necessary and material witness” in the grand jury’s investigation.
Farber has now ordered Giuliani to testify before the grand jury beginning on Aug. 9 “and on any such other dates as this Court may order.”
Giuliani was among the members of Trump’s legal team who were subpoenaed by the grand jury earlier this month for their attempts to keep the former president in office after losing the 2020 election. John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Cleta Mitchell, were also subpoenaed.
Additionally, Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was subpoenaed. Graham initially requested to quash the subpoena, but reached an agreement with Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis on Tuesday to move any challenges about the legality of the subpoena to state or federal court in Georgia.
The grand jury is interested in testimony from Trump’s legal team partly due to its alleged involvement in the scheme to appoint a fake slate of electors, in which a group of pro-Trump electors would falsely state they were electors for Georgia, despite Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
The grand jury is also investigating the origins of election fraud falsehoods that Giuliani and others in Trump’s legal team boosted. Several of the subpoenas to the group members cite a video that Giuliani and others used to try to spread baseless claims about misconduct by election workers. Those election workers shared emotional testimony with the Jan. 6 Select Committee last month about how the false claims took a toll on their personal lives.
That same video was seen by President Trump and then-Attorney General Bill Barr, who had Atlanta U.S. Attorney Byung J. Pak investigate it. Pak found that the video’s claims were unsubstantiated. Pak was pressured to resign shortly after that.
The subpoena to Giuliani asks for information about the video’s “acquisition” and the “manner of its presentation to the Georgia State Senate.” Additionally, it asks what Giuliani knows about other bogus claims of election fraud that the Trump campaign made.
