U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) looks on during a news conference calling to designate Russia as state sponsor of terrorism, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, U.S., September 14, 2022.
Tom Brenner | Reuters
A federal appeals court panel on Thursday unanimously rejected a request by Sen. Lindsey Graham to dam a subpoena for his testimony before a Georgia grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump for possible criminal interference within the 2020 presidential election.
Graham, R-S.C., had asked the eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to remain an order compelling his testimony issued by a federal district judge in Georgia pending his appeal of that call.
Amongst other things, a prosecutor presenting evidence to the Fulton County grand jury desires to query Graham a few phone call he had with Georgia’s top election official and talks he had with the Trump campaign on the heels of Election Day 2020, when Trump and his allies were attempting to overturn his loss in that state to President Joe Biden.
“Senator Graham has did not show that he’s prone to succeed on the merits of his appeal,” the eleventh Circuit panel said in its ruling Thursday.
Graham is now expected to ask the Supreme Court to dam the subpoena. His lawyers have publicly said they might accomplish that in the event that they lost on the eleventh Circuit.
Graham, an ally of Trump, argued that the subpoena searching for his testimony violated the speech and debate clause of the U.S. Structure, which protects members of Congress from legal risk from their comments related to legislative business. His lawyers claim his call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was a part of a legislative inquiry.
However the eleventh Circuit dismissed that argument, saying that “Graham has did not show that this approach will violate his rights under the Speech and Debate Clause.”
“Even assuming that the Clause protects informal legislative investigations, the district court’s approach ensures that Senator Graham won’t be questioned about such investigations,” the appeals court said.
The panel noted that the federal judge who ruled Graham would need to testify pursuant to the subpoena had also said that a prosecutor couldn’t query the senator about portions of the decision that will qualify as legislative activity.
“Because the court determined, there is critical dispute about whether his phone calls with Georgia election officials were legislative investigations in any respect,” the appeals court ruling said.
It said the federal judge had “enabled a process through which that dispute will be resolved.”
