The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows must testify before a Georgia grand jury investigating possible illegal interference by former President Donald Trump and his allies within the 2020 election.
“Now we have reviewed the arguments raised by [Meadows] and find them to be manifestly without merit,” the justices wrote in a unanimous opinion that upheld a lower court’s ruling, in accordance with POLITICO.
Meadows will now be compelled to testify in front of a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury investigation led by District Attorney Fani Willis.
Willis has pursued testimony from Meadows and other high-profile Republicans as a part of her probe into the 76-year-old former president’s efforts to influence the end result of the Georgia election, including his phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger by which he instructed the state official to “find” votes.
Meadows, who held a outstanding role on the White House within the weeks leading as much as the Jan. 6. 2021, Capitol riot, traveled to Georgia through the state’s post-2020 election audit and was on the Jan. 2, 2021, call with Trump and Raffensperger.
To be able to force Meadows’s testimony, Willis had to acquire the approval of local courts in South Carolina, where the previous Trump aide lives. A five-member panel on the state’s Supreme Court present in favor of the Atlanta-area prosecutor.
Meadows had argued that his appearance before the grand jury was blocked by executive privilege.
The ruling comes per week after Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) provided his own forced testimony in the identical case after months of legal wrangling.
Graham is alleged to have made numerous phone calls to Raffensperger within the weeks after Trump’s loss within the Peach State which have drawn the interest of investigators.
The senator argued that his calls to Raffensperger were “legislative fact-finding” as a part of his due diligence before the Jan. 6, 2021, vote to certify the election results. He claimed that being compelled to testify concerning the calls would violate his rights under the Structure’s Speech or Debate Clause, which protects lawmakers from legal liability for actions while conducting official business.
Raffensperger, who was re-elected as Georgia’s secretary of state on Nov. 8, has already provided his testimony before the Fulton County grand jury.