Giuliani is not the only Trump confidant ordered to testify before the Georgia grand jury, which was formed earlier this year and has received testimony from several other witnesses. The change in Giuliani’s status does not mean the long-time Trump friend will be charged, but it raises the likelihood of his criminal liability, making him the closest person to the former president to face potential indictment so far for his role in seeking to subvert the election outcome, according to legal experts.īeing labeled a target of an investigation suggests the “prosecutor believes there’s substantial evidence that person has committed a crime,” said Kimberly Wehle, a former federal prosecutor who is now a professor of law at the University of Baltimore. The former personal lawyer to Trump was ordered by a judge last month to appear as a witness before the special purpose grand jury but was recently informed that he is now a target of the fast-moving investigation, his lawyer disclosed on Monday. Giuliani also could have invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination. “The grand jury process is a secret process, and we’re going to respect that.”īefore the testimony, another Giuliani lawyer had indicated that Giuliani would refuse to answer questions about his conversations with Trump by claiming attorney-client privilege. “I can tell you that we were ordered to be here, we showed up, we did what we had to do,” Thomas told reporters outside the Fulton County Courthouse. The top prosecutor in Fulton County, which covers the city of Atlanta, has been investigating whether Trump and his associates illegally meddled in the election in Georgia.īill Thomas, a lawyer for Giuliani, declined to comment on Giuliani’s six-hour, closed-door testimony. Georgia is one of six battleground states that Trump lost to Democratic challenger Joe Biden and then falsely claimed he had won, filing legal challenges and pressing local officials to set aside official results. Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, testified remotely to that grand jury on Monday.Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani testified on Wednesday before a special grand jury in Atlanta, Georgia, investigating former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in the state. Separately from the Justice Department’s efforts is an investigation headed up by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation into Mr Trump and his team’s efforts to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in that state. One of those developments occurred yesterday when it was reported that Marc Short, chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, had testified that day before the grand jury in Washington.
What little is known about the scope of the investigation up until now has largely been gleaned from Mr Garland’s few public statements, criticism from Democratic lawmakers in Congress, and the rare piece of news regarding the grand jury investigation. The Justice Department under Mr Garland has been tight-lipped and leak-free for the most part regarding the department’s investigation of January beyond announcing charges for individual participants of the riot the agency has given little indication as to whether any members of Donald Trump’s campaign, administration, or inner circle will be held accountable for the attack on Congress that began moments after the president himself urged his supporters to descend on Capitol Hill.
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