ATLANTA — Rudy Giuliani, the onetime personal attorney of former President Donald Trump, entered the Fulton County courthouse on Wednesday morning to testify before the special purpose grand jury examining Georgia’s 2020 elections.
Pryor Street in downtown Atlanta took on a circus-like atmosphere as some three-dozen reporters and camerapeople from local and national news outlets jockeyed for the best view of the former New York City mayor. He arrived around 8:30 a.m., accompanied by his lawyer and former GOP gubernatorial candidate Vernon Jones.
The commotion came after one of Giuliani’s attorneys confirmed that his client was notified on Monday that he’s a target of the investigation and could be indicted.
Giuliani later cited the development as evidence that “we’re starting to live in a fascist state.”
“It’s just a further desecration of the Sixth Amendment. I was his lawyer of record in that case,” Giuliani said on Newsmax Monday, referencing Trump. “The statements that I made are either attorney-client privilege, because they were between me and him, or they were being made on his behalf in order to defend him.”
He added, “When you start turning around lawyers into defendants when they’re defending their clients, we’re starting to live in a fascist state. Look, I’ve already had my law office raided. I never thought I’d ever see that happen.”
Giuliani’s appearance is undoubtedly one of the most high-profile for the 23-person grand jury, which was selected in May and has already interviewed dozens of witnesses. It’s tasked with investigating whether Trump or his allies like Giuliani broke any state laws as they tried to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is advising the grand jury and will ultimately decide whether to press charges, has faced increasing resistance from witnesses as she’s gotten closer to Trump’s inner circle.
It’s unclear whether Giuliani plans to plead the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination, though he’s likely to cite attorney-client privilege to avoid answering questions about specific conversations he had with Trump.
That may cut off many queries from jurors and prosecutors, but some legal experts argue that Giuliani won’t have blanket legal immunity. That’s because of what’s known as the “crime-fraud exception,” which exempts discussions from attorney-client privilege if the objective was to commit a crime or perpetrate a fraud.
Some believe that prosecutors could try and cite the exception by pointing to the fact that Giuliani’s law license was suspended in June 2021 after a New York appellate court determined that he made “demonstrably false and misleading statements” following the 2020 election on behalf of Trump, including at legislative hearings in Georgia.
Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney will be the arbiter of what’s protected by privilege and what can be probed by the grand jury.
McBurney last week ordered Giuliani to honor his subpoena and testify before the grand jury after the 78-year-old sought to delay his testimony as he recovers from a recent heart stent operation.
The grand jury is interested in several Georgia events involving Giuliani in late 2020, including his role in the appointment of a slate of “alternate” Trump electors. Jurors have also questioned witnesses who were called by Giuliani as Georgia’s election results were being disputed and attended three statehouse hearings, during which Giuliani unfurled falsehood-filled allegations of widespread fraud.
Giuliani’s claims were quickly debunked by the Secretary of State’s office, but he doubled down on his comments in the following weeks.
His subpoena identifies him as both Trump’s personal lawyer and the lead attorney for the Trump campaign’s legal efforts to influence election results in Georgia and elsewhere.
“There is evidence that the Witness’s appearance and testimony at (a Dec. 3, 2020) hearing was part of a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere,” Giuliani’s subpoena stated.
Also on Wednesday, John Eastman, a Trump campaign lawyer who was allegedly a key architect of the fake elector plan, is scheduled to appear before a judge near his home in Santa Fe, N.M., regarding his Fulton subpoena.
On Tuesday, a Colorado judge ordered Jenna Ellis, a former Trump campaign attorney who worked closely with Giuliani, to honor her subpoena and testify before the Fulton grand jury.
Fulton prosecutor Will Wooten told 8th Judicial District Judge Gregory Lammons that investigators were interested in questioning Ellis about several issues, including her involvement in Georgia legislative hearings about election fraud in late 2020, legal memos she authored about what then-Vice President Mike Pence could do to reverse the election results and any knowledge about coordination among Trump campaign officials, according to CNN.
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