Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has unilaterally acted to block South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham from being compelled to give evidence before the Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury investigating former president Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
Justice Thomas, whose wife Ginni Thomas recently appeared before the House January 6 select committee to testify as to her involvement in efforts to keep Mr Trump in office against the wishes of US voters, issued a one-page order staying a Georgia district court order permitting enforcement of a Fulton County judge’s subpoena compelling Mr Graham to testify about phone calls he made to Georgia officials in the weeks following Mr Trump’s loss.
Mr Graham has been fighting Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ push for his testimony, which he claims would violate the US Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause barring members of the House or Senate from being “questioned in any other place” about their official actions.
The GOP senator had argued that his calls to Georgia officials were part of an informal investigation carried out in his then-role as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But the Georgia district court rejected those claims and instead ruled that he could be questioned about the calls by Ms Willis and grand jurors.
After Mr Graham appealed the ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, a three-judge panel affirmed the lower court decision, writing that he had “failed to demonstrate that he is likely to succeed on the merits of his appeal”.
Mr Graham again appealed the ruling last week, this time to the Supreme Court, which divides supervision of appeals from the 12 circuit courts among its’ nine members. Because Justice Thomas handles the 11th Circuit, the case was his initial responsibility.
While in many instances justices refer such emergency appeals to the full court for consideration, Justice Thomas instead acted unilaterally to issue a single-sentence order states that the Georgia court’s 1 September order is “hereby stayed pending further order” from either Justice Thomas or the entire Supreme Court.
Justice Thomas, the court’s most senior associate justice, has been facing calls for him to recuse himself from matters involving the 2020 election and the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Legal experts have questioned his prior decision not to recuse himself from a case involving Mr Trump’s efforts to block the House select committee from accessing his former administration’s records, citing his wife’s involvement in efforts to overturn 2020 election results in several swing states.
Ms Thomas, a veteran conservative activist, has long maintained that she and her husband do not discuss each other’s professional activities.
