Senator Lindsey Graham must testify before a Georgia grand jury investigating efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election in the state, an appeals court ruled.
The Republican politician from South Carolina had asked the 11th Circuit US Court of Appeals to reverse a lower court ruling requiring him to testify before the Fulton County special grand jury.
“Senator Graham has failed to demonstrate that he is likely to succeed on the merits of his appeal,” the 11th Circuit said in its ruling which was released on Thursday.
The grand jury wants to question Mr Graham about a phone call he conducted with Georgia election officials following election day 2020, when Mr Trump refused to accept he had lost the state to Joe Biden.
Lawyers for Mr Graham argued that a subpoena to get his testimony violated the speech and debate clause of the US Constitution, which protects members of Congress from legal exposure over their comments on legislative business.
That argument was rejected by the appeals court.
“As the court determined, there is significant dispute about whether his phone calls with Georgia election officials were legislative investigations at all,” the appeals court ruling stated.
“The court’s partial quashal enabled a process through which that dispute can be resolved.”
Mr Graham is now likely to appeal the decision, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s investigation was originally based on Mr Trump’s January 2021 controversial phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” the votes necessary for his campaign to win the state over Joe Biden.
It now also includes the fake elector scheme, threats and harassment against election workers and other issues.
Mr Trump himself has accused Ms Willis of “spending almost all of her waking hours” on “attempting to prosecute a very popular president, Donald J Trump” rather than focusing on violent crime in Atlanta.
