A Fulton County judge on Thursday morning will hear arguments about whether Gov. Brian Kemp should be forced to testify before a grand jury examining potential criminal interference in Georgia’s 2020 elections.
The Republican governor, who is seeking reelection in November against Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams, is seeking to avoid speaking to a special grand jury looking into whether former President Donald Trump and his allies broke the law in their coordinated effort to overturn the results of Georgia’s presidential election in Trump’s favor.
Kemp’s lawyers have accused Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, of trying to get the sitting governor to testify for “improper political purposes,” which Willis has strongly denied.
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An official subpoena for Kemp was issued after plans for a voluntary interview with Fulton County prosecutors fell apart.
Kemp’s attorneys have cited sovereign immunity, executive and attorney-client privilege, and proximity to the November general elections as reasons why he should not be forced to testify before the 23-person grand jury. In a motion, the governor’s lawyers asked Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney to delay Kemp’s testimony until after the election and requested clear guidelines on the types of questions he will be asked and those that are off-limits. His attorneys said because the general election is so close, they didn’t have the “time necessary to prepare and then appear” to provide testimony.
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr argued that because the grand jury is authorized through May 2023, the “conclusion of the investigation before the November 2022 election is unnecessary.”
“Such an unrealistic and unnecessary timeline is discouraged by prosecutorial ethical standards since the integrity of the 2022 election is not at issue,” he added.
The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office claims sovereign immunity and executive privilege do not apply in this case and said in a court filing this week that Kemp is “uniquely knowledgeable” about what took place in 2020 because he was personally involved.
The investigation into Trump and his allies was opened last year following a January 2021 telephone call between then-President Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during which Trump suggested Georgia election officials “find” the votes needed to overturn President Joe Biden’s win. Since then, the scope of the case has grown.
Raffensperger and other state officials have already appeared before the special grand jury.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), whose telephone calls to Raffensperger and his staff are of interest to prosecutors, was scheduled to testify earlier this week, but a federal appeals court put that testimony on hold while his lawyers fight his subpoena.
Last week, a Texas judge ordered Dallas-based lawyer and podcaster Jacki Pick to travel to Georgia to testify. She, too, tried to fight it but was denied Tuesday by an appeals court. Pick gave a presentation before a state legislative committee in December 2020 in which she presented a surveillance video of alleged fraud by election workers at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
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Less than a day after her presentation, Raffensperger’s office debunked her video and said, as it always has, that there was no evidence of election fraud at that site.
Raffensperger was defeated earlier this year in his reelection primary by a Republican candidate who claims the 2020 election was rigged and that Trump was the actual victor.
