Lindsey Graham asks Supreme Court to block Georgia grand jury subpoena sought by AG on possible white supremacist vote fraud
The Supreme Court has stayed a subpoena for information from the state of Georgia, which is being considered in a separate lawsuit, while the issue is decided.
A federal judge in Georgia on Tuesday denied Georgia’s request to block a court order to turn over evidence to state authorities. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg said she would consider Georgia’s request to stay the subpoena in the fall, but said she would not make a decision on it before then.
In December, Georgia officials obtained a search warrant from a federal grand jury in New York City, ordering the subpoena for documents sought by Attorney General Sam Olens, who is also leading the investigation into the alleged vote fraud in the hotly contested 2018 U.S. Senate election in the Peach State.
“The Georgia attorney general has not established that the records sought are relevant to the investigation or that the records are otherwise not subject to legitimate governmental demands,” Totenberg said in her order.
The New York grand jury in December subpoenaed evidence from Georgia, seeking documents about how the polls were being watched, who was watching and recording the polls, and how each polling entity was selected. The State Board of Elections released a memo in January, saying there was no evidence of vote fraud in the 2018 Senate election.
The Georgia lawsuit alleges that Georgia election officials tampered with ballots; the state did not give enough access to voters to observe the polls; and there may have been a breakdown in the system’s vote counting equipment, which could have led to vote fraud.
A spokesman for the attorney general, Sam Olens, in a statement released Tuesday, said the decision to seek a stay pending appeal was not based on the grand jury subpoena, but was instead in an effort to keep the information private.
“The State Board of Elections and the Attorney General are not participating in the proceeding before the District Court in New York. The State Board of Elections and the Attorney General have no intention of providing any documents or information to the District Court in New York, even if granted with a stay of the search warrant,” said Olens spokesman Chris Hart in an email