A judge has ordered one-time Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to road trip his way to Georgia to appear before a grand jury investigating the former president’s attempts to influence the state’s 2020 Presidential Election results.
Giuliani was scheduled to appear in a Georgia court today to answer questions about his own false claims of voter fraud and Trump’s attempts to pressure Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to overturn the results. Instead, his lawyers argued that Giuliani couldn’t appear before the grand jury in person because of a recent medical procedure. According to William H. Thomas Jr., a lawyer representing Giuliani in the case, the former New York mayor had a doctor’s note that prevented him from flying following the undisclosed procedure. Giuliani’s team tried to persuade the judge to let him answer questions virtually since he couldn’t travel.
Unfortunately for Giuliani, prosecutors in the case had his receipts, literally. Via Raw Story, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis presented records they had obtained showing Trump’s former henchman had paid for flights to Rome, Italy, and Zurich, Switzerland in cash for multiple dates between July 22nd and July 29th, well after his procedure took place. The DA also referenced a tweet sent by Giuliani on August 1st, showing the right-wing loon at an event in New Hampshire.
Judge Robert McBurney let both sides argue their case but ultimately told Giuliani’s team he expected to see them on Aug. 17th, suggesting that Giuliani drive the 13 hours from New York to Georgia by breaking up the trip across multiple days. The DA also offered to pay for Giuliani to travel by bus or train if that was more convenient for him.
“If it turns out that Mr. Giuliani is willfully disregarding the now formal invitation to be here, that’s problematic,” McBurney told Giuliani’s attorney. “If that’s not the situation then we need to establish when he’ll be here and there are lots of ways to make that happen. I’m sure he can find a way, short of Greyhound, that can get him to Atlanta.”
(Via RawStory)