Giuliani Is Target of Georgia Criminal Probe Into 2020 Election Interference: Report
A lawyer stressed that it was unlikely that the former mayor would cooperate with prosecutors, and that instead he would use attorney-client privilege as a shield.
A former mayor of New York City who led President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Rudolph Giuliani, has been informed via his lawyers that he is a target in an ongoing criminal investigation into election interference in Georgia, according to press reports.
Mr. Guiliani was scheduled to appear before a special grand jury at Atlanta on Monday as part of an investigation by the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, into Mr. Trump’s efforts to persuade Georgia officials to reject official vote tallies from the 2020 presidential election and declare him the winner instead of President Biden.
Mr. Trump, who carried Georgia in the 2016 election, lost the state by less than 12,000 votes in 2020.
Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer, Bob Costello, told the New York Times that his client was informed Monday that he was a target of the grand jury’s investigation. He stressed that it was unlikely that the former mayor would cooperate with prosecutors, and that instead he would use attorney-client privilege as a shield. Mr. Giuliani acted as Mr. Trump’s personal attorney in 2020.
After that election, Mr. Giuliani spent months lobbying state officials around the country in attempting to prove Mr. Trump’s allegations of election malfeasance. He also played a central role in efforts to create slates of so-called fake electors from states such as Georgia and Arizona, where Mr. Biden’s margins of victory over Mr. Trump were especially narrow.
The Department of Justice, along with the Fulton County prosecutors, is reportedly investigating the fake elector schemes.
A special House committee investigating the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill was told by former White House officials that Mr. Giuliani was among several people who asked Mr. Trump for preemptive pardons when it became clear that their efforts to reverse the 2020 results would not succeed. Mr. Giuliani has denied ever asking for a pardon.
In Georgia, prosecutors have zeroed in on Mr. Giuliani’s appearance before panels of state legislators in December 2020 during which he relayed uncorroborated stories of rigged voting machines and suitcases full of Democratic votes being ferried around. He told state officials that they could not certify the Georgia vote in “good faith.”
Mr. Giuliani’s appearance before the state panel, which lasted for seven hours, was videotaped in its entirety.
