Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas blocks Lindsey Graham subpoena

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday temporarily blocked a subpoena demanding testimony from South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham from a Georgia grand jury investigating election interference by former President Donald Trump.

The hold on the subpoena got here three days after Graham’s attorneys asked Thomas to delay the senator’s appearance before the grand jury, which is investigating possible criminal interference in Georgia’s presidential election in 2020.

On Thursday, a panel of judges on the eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously rejected a request by Graham to temporarily block the subpoena, which calls for the senator to testify on Nov. 17 in an Atlanta courthouse.

The appeals panel said Graham had failed to indicate he was more likely to succeed on an appeal difficult the legality of the demand for his testimony. Last month, a federal district judge upheld the legality of the grand jury’s subpoena.

The grand jury specifically is probing the actions of Trump and his allies, including Graham, who contacted state election officials and others on the heels of the election, which was won in that state and nationally by President Joe Biden.

Trump pressured state officials to take actions that might have overturned Biden’s win, as a part of an analogous effort in other swing states whose losses by Trump ensured his defeat within the Electoral College. In an early January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump urged him to “find” enough votes to erase Biden’s margin of victory.

Thomas, who’s accountable for emergency applications comparable to Graham’s issued out of the eleventh Circuit, issued the hold on the subpoena on his own accord, without referring the query to all the Supreme Court.

The conservative justice said the subpoena could be delayed pending further order by Thomas or the Supreme Court. Two days before he issued the stay, Thomas told Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutors, who’re presenting evidence to the grand jury, to reply by Thursday to Graham’s request for a stay of the subpoena

The stay will give more time for Graham’s lawyers and prosecutors to file briefs arguing whether the subpoena ought to be allowed to face or not.

Graham’s lawyer Donald McGahn didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

A spokesman for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis declined to comment, saying prosecutors would reply to Graham’s application to the Supreme Court on Thursday, as ordered by Thomas.

Graham has argued that the subpoena violates the U.S. Structure’s speech and debate clause, which protects members of Congress from legal risk from their comments related to legislative business.

He claims his call to Raffensperger after Election Day 2020 was a part of a legislative inquiry.

However the eleventh Circuit panel in its ruling last week said that a federal district court judge had ordered that a Fulton County prosecutor couldn’t query Graham about portions of the decision that 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.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, blasted Thomas on Twitter for blocking the subpoena, tying it to the justice’s wife Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, who had encouraged Trump White House officials and state legislators to overturn Biden’s victories in swing states.

“Disgusting. Some other judge within the country would recuse,” Pocan tweeted, using the legal term for a judge declining to handle a case due to a conflict of interest, or other reasons.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, tweeted, “One other day, one other conflict of interest for Justice Thomas revealed.”

“Add this to the laundry list of impeachable offenses he has committed. He has no business being on the Supreme Court, and no shame,” Schakowsky added.