• A federal judge denied Sen. Lindsey Graham’s effort to quash a subpoena seeking his testimony.
• The judge rejected Graham’s arguments against having to testify before a special grand jury.
• The investigation involves possible 2020 election interference in Georgia by former President Donald Trump and others.

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s attempt to have a subpoena requesting his testimony in a probe into potential meddling in the 2020 election in Georgia by the former president Donald Trump and others rejected by a federal judge on Monday.

Graham’s objections to being required to testify before a special grand jury were rejected by U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May in Atlanta in a 22-page order. This included Graham’s claim that the speech and debate clause of the Constitution shields the South Carolina Republican from giving testimony.

Graham’s attorneys had contended that the clause applied to a post-election phone call Graham made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in November 2020 because it had a legislative purpose.

Graham’s claim that his status as a current U.S. senator gives him immunity from testifying was also denied by the judge.

Senators from the United States would not be forced to appear before state grand juries under any circumstances, May wrote, if the court accepted Graham’s claim of sovereign immunity. They would be completely immune from prosecution under the law due to their position as federal officials alone.

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Finally, the judge ruled that Graham’s justification for being excluded from testifying because he is a senior officer is equally unpersuasive. The testimony of Graham, who has “unique personal knowledge about the substance and circumstances of the phone calls with Georgia election officials, as well as the logistics of setting them up and his actions afterward,” was required because, as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis demonstrated, “extraordinary circumstances” existed.

According to the order, “Senator Graham’s potential testimony on these issues—as well as his knowledge about subjects outside of the calls, such as his alleged coordination with the Trump campaign before and after the calls—are unique to Senator Graham, and Senator Graham has not suggested that anyone else from his office can speak to these issues or has unique personal knowledge of them.

Graham’s office issued a statement announcing that he would be appealing the judge’s ruling.

“The speech or debate clause of the Constitution prohibits a municipal authority from interrogating a senator about how that senator performed his duties, “The declaration read. “Before voting to certify the election under the Electoral Count Act, Senator Graham was conducting his due diligence in this case.

Senator Graham intends to challenge the district court’s decision to the 11th Circuit even though the judge disregarded the Constitution’s language and binding Supreme Court precedent despite acknowledging that some of the senator’s activities may be protected by speech or debate.

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