Atlanta Grand Jury Investigating Trump will see Giuliani

A target of the inquiry into whether Donald J. Trump and his allies attempted to improperly influence Georgia's 2020 presidential election outcomes has been identified as the former mayor of New York.

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Rudolph W. Giuliani was greeted like the emissary of the most powerful man in the world when he visited the capital city of Georgia in December 2020 to make ludicrous public accusations of election fraud on behalf of President Donald J. Trump. He even posed for photos with admirers and sympathetic state politicians.

On Wednesday, the former New York City mayor who has been acting as Mr. Trump's personal lawyer since the 2020 election in November is set to testify before a Fulton County special grand jury investigating possible criminal activity by Mr. Trump and his aides. At a meeting with Mr. Giuliani's attorneys this week, local prosecutors confirmed that their client was a "target" of the investigation and, thus, a potential indictment.

A Fulton County special grand jury is conducting a criminal investigation into postelection meddling by Mr. Trump and his associates, and the former mayor of New York City, who was serving as Mr. Trump's personal lawyer after the election in November 2020, is scheduled to appear before the grand jury on Wednesday. This week, local prosecutors disclosed to Mr. Giuliani's legal team that he was a "target" of the investigation in question, which indicates that an indictment against him may be forthcoming. He was serving in that capacity after the election.

Mr. Giuliani must appear 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. This is because Mr. Giuliani and a pro-Trump group made a number of false claims about election fraud at the state capitol, raising concerns about untrustworthy voting machines and suitcases of illegal ballots.

Following President Trump's description of prosecutors like herself as "vicious, awful people," the District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, Fani T. Willis, has requested that the Federal Bureau of Investigation increase the level of security at the downtown courthouse.

Mr. Giuliani's legal team battled hard to prevent him from being required to make the trip to Atlanta. Instead, they made him an offer to appear before the court via videoconference and said he was too weak to go by plane after having a pair of heart stents implanted at the beginning of July. He accepted the offer. However, Judge Robert C.I. McBurney decided the previous week that Mr. Giuliani could travel "on a train, on a bus, or with Uber." On Monday, a lawyer for Mr. Giuliani declined to comment on how his client intended to travel from New York to Atlanta. The trip was scheduled to take place on Tuesday.

Mr. Giuliani is not the only high-profile member of Mr. Trump's team that is not thrilled about having to show up in Georgia to be questioned 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." Mr. Giuliani is not the only high-profile member of Mr. Trump's team that is not thrilled about having to show up in Georgia.

After Senator Lindsey Graham attempted to find a way out of appearing before the special grand jury, a federal judge on Monday ordered Senator Graham to do so despite Graham's efforts to avoid it. Mr. Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, declared that he would appeal the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, arguing that the Constitution's Speech and Debate clause exempted him from having to testify because of his position as a senator. Mr. Graham is from South Carolina.

After Ms. Willis's office filed "petitions for certification of the need for testimony" concerning them, two other lawyers on the Trump team, Jenna Ellis of Colorado and John Eastman of New Mexico, were scheduled to have hearings this week in their home states. These hearings were to take place in Colorado and New Mexico, respectively. In most cases, such petitions are only submitted when a potential witness declines to testify, or the prosecution cannot contact the potential witness.

At the Tuesday Tuesday hearing for Ms. Ellis, a court in Colorado issued an order requiring her to come and testify before the special grand jury meeting in Atlanta on August 25. Wednesday is the day that Mr. Eastman's court hearing is supposed to occur in Santa Fe.

When asked to testify in front of the grand jury behind closed doors, it is quite improbable that Mr. Giuliani, who is 78 years old, will provide any information to the panel. Michael J. Moore, a lawyer in Atlanta who previously worked for the United States Attorney's Office in Georgia, stated, "at this point, I just can't envision him cooperating." "He can go in a number of different directions if he so chooses. One option is for him to assert that he is unable to respond to your queries due to attorney-client confidentiality. Another reason is that he will plead the Fifth Amendment since he has been singled out as a potential target.

However, the visit may be helpful to the prosecutors who are handling the investigation in Georgia. Ms. Willis has stated that the investigation may result in racketeering or conspiracy charges being brought against multiple individuals.

Witnesses who have already testified before the grand jury has stated that the jurors were particularly interested in two appearances by Mr. Giuliani in December 2020 before state legislative panels. During these appearances, Mr. Giuliani made several false assertions about election fraud. Although it is unclear what charges Mr. Giuliani might face, it has been reported that the jurors were particularly interested in these appearances.

When witnesses or targets invoke their Fifth Amendment rights to decline to answer questions, a grand jury is permitted to draw its own conclusions. This is in contrast to the instructions given to a trial jury, which would be instructed not to make any inferences about a criminal defendant's silence. (The special grand jury sitting in Georgia cannot indict anyone. The findings of the special panel could then be used as the basis for indictments handed down by a regular grand jury.

Page Pate, an experienced trial attorney in Atlanta, stated that prosecutors might also try to argue to a judge that attorney-client privilege does not apply to some of the questions that were asked of Mr. Giuliani. This is because of the "crime-fraud exception" to the privilege, which essentially states that attorneys cannot be shielded from testifying if they help their clients commit a crime.

According to Mr. Pate, even if Mr. Giuliani is successful in dodging questions most of the time, crucial information regarding the magnitude of the strategy to reverse Mr. Trump's election defeat might still be disclosed over the questioning.

Why not just interrogate him and see what the results are? Mr. Pate stated.

Mr. Giuliani has been engaging in conversation outside of the grand jury room. In an interview that took place on Monday with the far-right news channel Newsmax, he stated that the investigation into Fulton County amounted to a "desecration of the Sixth Amendment." The Sixth Amendment guarantees, among other things, the right to a public trial and the right to legal representation.

Mr. Giuliani stated, in reference to Mr. Trump and his concerns regarding the election's outcomes, "I was his lawyer of record in that matter." "The remarks that I made are either protected by the attorney-client privilege because they were between him and me or because they were being made on his behalf to defend him," I said.

It is known that a total of 18 people have been identified as potential targets of the inquiry, including 16 "alternative electors" in Georgia who supported Donald Trump and were sworn in on the same day as the state's genuine presidential electors. An attempt was made on Tuesday afternoon by 11 of the alternate electors to potentially disqualify Ms. Willis and her office from handling the case. This attempt was tied to Ms. Willis's previous exclusion from a portion of the investigation.

Because Ms. Willis, who is a Democrat, had headlined a fund-raiser for a fellow Democrat who was running against Mr. Jones in the race for lieutenant governor, Judge McBurney prohibited Ms. Willis and her office from developing a criminal case against Georgia State Senator Burt Jones, an ally of Trump's and an alternate elector. The judge justified this decision by citing a conflict of interest. In July, the judge issued this ruling.

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