A prosecutor with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office slammed Gov. Brian Kemp’s gambit to quash a subpoena to testify before a special grand jury.
Special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who is advising the special grand jury, argued that Kemp, a Republican, clearly had information pertinent to its criminal investigation into the 2020 election and said that failure to capitulate could influence the 2022 election.
GOV. BRIAN KEMP MOVES TO KILL GEORGIA ELECTION SUBPOENA
“A reasonable observer may well conclude that (Kemp’s) current, strident show of non-cooperation with the District Attorney and the grand jury’s investigation into election interference by Mr. Trump and his associates — both in the instant motion (to quash his subpoena) and before the media — is itself a tactic to influence the November election,” Wade wrote in a court filing, per the Atlanta Constitution Journal.
Kemp filed a motion to quash the subpoena last week, arguing that his schedule was jam-packed ahead of the midterm elections, making it difficult to accommodate the Fulton County inquiry. His lawyers said the governor previously reached an agreement with prosecutors to deliver video testimony. That agreement subsequently collapsed, and Kemp’s counsel blamed prosecutors, noting Kemp was subpoenaed days later.
The Georgia governor, who is vying to defend his seat from Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams in a rematch of their 2018 battle, also cited executive and attorney-client privilege in his motion to quash last week. In a lengthy, 53-page rebuttal to Kemp’s motion, Wade repudiated his privilege claims, arguing they did not apply to this situation.
“[Kemp is] uniquely knowledgeable about the election interference matters being investigated by the grand jury since he was personally involved in the conversations at issue,” Wade said.
Wade also shed light on why Fulton County is eager to procure Kemp’s testimony. Investigators want to learn about calls Kemp had with former President Donald Trump and his allies, if Trump implored Kemp to hold a special election, any intimidation Kemp may have faced from Trumpworld, and any evidence he came across that the election was rigged, per the report.
A hearing on Kemp’s motion is slated for Thursday. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney is presiding over the challenge. Kemp had initially been scheduled to testify for the Fulton County inquiry on Aug. 18.
“For more than a year, the Governor’s team has continually expressed his desire to provide a full accounting of his very limited role in the issues being looked at by the special grand jury,” a spokesperson for Kemp previously told the Washington Examiner. “We are now just weeks away from the 2022 general election, making it increasingly difficult to dedicate the time necessary to prepare and then appear.”
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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis initiated the inquiry about whether crimes were committed in Georgia during the aftermath of the 2020 election after audio surfaced of Trump underscoring the need to “find” 11,780 votes needed to reverse his electoral loss during a call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Since then, the investigation has broadened. The special grand jury was impaneled in May and has slapped a number of Trump allies, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rudy Guiliani, with subpoenas for testimony. Willis, a Democrat, has not ruled out subpoenaing Trump.
