For months now, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has been fighting a subpoena out of the Peach States, but the battle appears to be coming to an end this week.
Graham, who is being investigated by Georgia authorities in regard to his conversations with election officials in the aftermath of the 2020, will now need to testify before a grand jury.
In a big win for the Georgia prosecutor investigating alleged interference in the 2020 election, the Supreme Court has rejected Sen. Lindsey Graham’s attempt to have a subpoena quashed. In an order issued Tuesday with no noted dissent, the top court said lower courts had already protected the Republican senator from being questioned about “informal investigative fact-finding” that Graham says is related to his legislative duties and an injunction was not necessary to safeguard his immunity under the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, the Washington Post reports. The Tuesday order vacated a temporary block on Graham’s grand jury testimony issued by Justice Clarence Thomas last week.
And that was just the tip of this iceberg.
The subpoena said Graham “also made reference to allegations of widespread voter fraud” that were “consistent with public statements made by known affiliates of the Trump campaign.” Lower courts have ruled that Graham can be questioned about issues including possible coordination with the Trump campaign and efforts to “cajole” or “exhort” election officials, the Post reports. Graham is now scheduled to appear before the grand jury on Nov. 17, though he could still invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions, NBC reports. The Supreme Court said in its Tuesday order that Graham “may return to the District Court should disputes arise” regarding the speech and debate clause’s application to specific questions.
Graham has been, at times, a rather mercurial figure in the Republican Party, and there’s no telling precisely weighs heaviest on his mind.
