Gov. Kemp to testify before Trump grand jury
Gov. Kemp to testify before Trump grand jury
June 24, 2022
In today’s edition of Swing State Georgia:
The pace quickens in three investigations into Donald Trump.
Did Marjorie Taylor Greene ask for a Trump pardon?
Warnock and Walker debate over debates.
We’ve heard a lot of details from Georgia officials who felt the wrath of Donald Trump as he tried to overturn his 2020 election defeat. But it’s never included much of anything from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Now that’s about to change.
Our AJC colleague Tamar Hallerman broke the story last night that Gov. Kemp will testify in coming weeks before the Fulton County special grand jury investigating whether Donald Trump violated Georgia law as he tried to overturn his election loss.
From Tamar’s story:
Kemp’s sworn examination will take place on July 25.
The 23-member special grand jury also subpoenaed a bevy of evidence from Kemp’s office, which Wade said must be made available at least 72 hours before the governor’s scheduled testimony.
While millions of people have heard the phone call of Donald Trump attempting to bully Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger into overturning the election, Trump’s behind-the-scenes interactions with Kemp are largely unknown.
We know some of the basics - like when Kemp rebuffed Trump’s demand to summon state legislators to the Georgia Capitol for a special session to reverse the election, a demand we now know he made in other states, too.
But Kemp’s testimony could reveal new details about ways Trump pressured him to flip Georgia’s results – and how Kemp rejected those pleas.
And it could also further stir the political waters between Kemp and Trump, which has already created some divisions among Georgia Republicans in this election year.
It’s been an extraordinarily active week when it comes to Georgia, Trump, and the investigations of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
There were two hearings by the January 6 committee in Congress which featured all sorts of stories about Georgia. Search warrants from the feds were served on Georgia Republicans who joined Trump’s fake elector scheme. And more witnesses made the trek before the Fulton County grand jury.
On Thursday, Georgia state Rep. Bee Nguyen – the newly minted Democratic nominee for Georgia Secretary of State – testified before the grand jury in Atlanta, as investigators zeroed in on Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
Nguyen said she was asked to recount how Giuliani and his lawyers lied about election fraud in Georgia during a specially called legislative hearing.
“It’s a disservice they were allowed into our Capitol in the first place,” she wrote on Twitter.
PARDON ME? Speaking of bombshell testimony, the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot released some shocking video footage at the end of Thursday’s hearing.
It showed former White House aides under President Donald Trump recounting the members of Congress who inquired about presidential pardons after the deadly riot.
Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, was also asked specifically about Georgia’s U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“I heard that she asked White House Counsel Office for a pardon from Mr. Philbin,” Hutchinson said, referring to deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin.
Greene attacked the committee and Hutchison in response.
“Saying ‘I heard’ means you don’t know,” Greene wrote. “Spreading gossip and lies is exactly what the January 6th Witch Hunt Committee is all about.”
But pressed by reporters in the hallways of the U.S. Capitol, Greene didn’t specifically deny that she had asked for a pardon.
For you Watergate fans out there, that might be what your Insiders would call a ‘non-denial denial.’
LISTEN UP: Washington Insider Tia Mitchell is our special guest on the Friday edition of the Politically Georgia podcast. Tia takes us behind-the-scenes of the January 6th hearings in Washington, D.C. and Sen. Raphael Warnock’s pitch to ease pain at the pump.
Listen at the AJC or at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
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