A grand jury in Georgia subpoenaed key members of former President Donald Trump's key circle on Tuesday—just one week after ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson delivered bombshell testimony before the House select panel investigating the Capitol rot on January 6, 2021.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis launched an investigation in February of 2021 about Trump's alleged attempts at election interference in Georgia. She and other Georgia prosecutors have been investigating whether Trump violated election laws when he allegedly asked Brad Raffensperger to "find" 11,800 votes in the aftermath of his 2020 election loss in the state.
The investigation is now circling in on those who were close to the president amid his alleged attempts at thwarting the 2020 election results.
On Tuesday, prosecutors issued subpoenas against several people who were closely linked to Trump, according to a report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Most of the subpoenas were filed against members of Trump's legal team, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who served as the former president's personal attorney. The grand jury also subpoenaed John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Cleta Mitchell, according to the newspaper.
They also targeted Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who faced accusations of pressuring Raffensberger to toss out legal ballots, though he has denied doing so. Conservative podcaster Jacki Deason was also subpoenaed.
Members of Trump's Legal Team Subpoenaed
Conservative attorneys who allegedly helped advise Trump to develop strategies to overturn the election results were the primary targets of the subpoenas, but they could claim attorney-client privilege to avoid giving any testimony. Eastman has used a similar argument to avoid turning over documents to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack, though the argument has faced scrutiny from judges.
Giuliani is required to testify before the grand jury on July 12, according to a court order published by the Journal-Constitution.
"The Court further finds that the Witness was both a personal attorney for former President Donald Trump and a lead attorney for the Trump Campaign's legal efforts seeking to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere," per the document.
Lindsey Graham Also Subpoenaed
Raffensperger, Georgia's Republican secretary of state who refused to go along with Trump's alleged plans to block election results, told The Washington Post in November of 2020 that in the days following the election, Graham questioned him about whether political bias could have prompted poll workers to accept ballots with signatures that don't match and whether he could toss out all mail ballots in counties with a high rate of signatures that don't match.
Graham denied the allegation that he was seeking to pressure Raffensperger to alter the election results, calling the claim "ridiculous."
"What I'm trying to find out was, how do you verify signatures on mail-in ballots in these states that are just the center of attention?" he told reporters.
Still, prosecutors in Fulton County are demanding that he testify about the call.
They noted that Graham would have "unique knowledge" about "any communications between himself, others involved in the planning and execution of the telephone calls," according to the order reported by the Journal-Constitution.
In a statement to Newsweek, Graham's attorneys wrote that the subpoena was "all politics" as part of Fulton County's "fishing expedition." Graham's attorneys wrote the Senator plans to challenge the subpoena in court.
"As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Graham was well within his rights to discuss with state officials the processes and procedures around administering elections," the statement said. "Should it stand, the subpoena issued today would erode the constitutional balance of power and the ability of a Member of Congress to do their job."
Orders Follow Bombshell Testimony
The subpoenas add to an already difficult week for Trump following Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide for Trump's ex-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, delivering her testimony to the January 6 committee.
During the testimony last week, Hutchinson said that Trump allegedly wanted armed protesters to attend his speech the morning of the attack, and that he allegedly got into a physical altercation with security when it wouldn't bring him to the Capitol as Congress sought to certify the Electoral College votes.
Hutchinson's testimony has been described as "explosive" by legal analysts. Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti wrote on Twitter that the odds of Trump being prosecuted grew "significantly" as a result of the testimony.
Newsweek reached out to Chesebro, Deason, Eastman, Ellis, Giuliani and Mitchell for comment.
Update 7/6/2022, 10:55 a.m. ET: This story was updated with a statement from Senator Lindsey Graham's attorneys.
