It’s admittedly been little tricky keeping track of not only which seismic Trump scandal is unfolding at any given moment these days, but also whomst among his various quislings, sycophants, or barely-tolerated offspring are involved. Is it the one where he instigated a riot against congressmen and women holed up in their congressional offices cowering for their lives? The one where he stashed a bunch of top secret documents in the basement of Mar-a-Lago after swearing up and down that, nope, he’d given everything back, no problemo? The one where he spent five hours saying “same answer” over and over and over instead of explaining his eponymous company’s dubious finances? As far as this man and his various schemes go, it’s literally an embarrassment of riches.
Somewhat lost in the cacophony of Trump-adjacent scandals has been the ongoing investigation into the former president and his cronies’ attempt to strong-arm Georgia election officials in 2020 into awarding him an electoral victory in state he unambiguously lost. Yet while that case hasn’t earned the same level of coverage that the Jan. 6 House committee investigation or the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago have recently enjoyed, that doesn’t mean things haven’t been happening. In fact, big things are afoot, with a report Monday that Rudy Giuliani is currently under criminal investigation for his alleged role in the Georgia election tampering caper. Giuliani’s lawyers confirmed the development to The New York Times.
The revelation of Giuliani’s potential criminal liability comes the same week that the former federal prosecutor and New York City mayor is scheduled to speak before a grand jury empaneled by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis about his role in the election scheme to steal Georgia, which ultimately proved unsuccessful. But that doesn’t mean that a man who spent much of 2020 embarrassing himself on behalf of his similarly embarrassing client is prepared to give up the goods just yet.
“If these people think he’s going to talk about conversations between him and President Trump, they’re delusional,” Giuliani’s attorney Robert Costello told the Times.
Giuliani is not the only Trump associate ensnared in the Georgia investigation. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) has been ordered to testify before the grand jury next week, after a federal judge quashed his attempt to buck a subpoena on the grounds that as a high-level government official, conversations between himself and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger were merely fact-finding dialogues that were constitutionally protected. Graham plans to appeal the judge’s decision, his office said in a press release issued after the judge’s ruling. But with two of Trump’s top lieutenants slated to testify in the coming days, don’t be surprised if the Georgia investigation quickly secures a spot in the uppermost echelons of the seemingly endless major legal threats currently facing the former president.
