Former Georgia lieutenant governor subpoenaed to testify before Fulton County grand jury in 2020 election probe

By Jason Morris, Sara Murray and Jack Forrest, CNN

(CNN) — Former Georgia Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan received subpoenas to testify before a Fulton County grand jury this month, a source with direct knowledge of the 2020 election interference investigation in the state told CNN.

Duncan has been a sharp critic of Donald Trump’s efforts to upend Georgia’s election results. He recently told CNN that he was “embarrassed” when Rudy Giuliani, a former attorney for Trump, and other allies of the former president appeared before Georgia state lawmakers. While Duncan was president of the Georgia state Senate at the time, he told CNN he did not “sanction” those meetings, and that they were not “official hearings.”

In an interview Monday with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room,” Duncan committed to testifying in front of the grand jury, saying he’ll “be there to answer the facts as I know them and to continue this process of trying to discover what actually happened during that post-election period of time.”

“We can never repeat that in this country. Certainly I never want to see that happen in my home state of Georgia, a lot of good peoples’ lives were uprooted, a lot of peoples’ reputations have been soiled,” Duncan, a CNN political contributor and Republican, said.

Duncan said that he would be “willing to testify and tell the truth in as many settings as I possibly can,” in response to a question about whether he’d be willing to testify in any other related trials.

A spokesperson for the Fulton County district attorney’s office declined to comment.

The former lieutenant governor is the third witness publicly known to receive a subpoena for grand jury testimony. CNN previously reported independent journalist George Chidi and former Georgia Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan have also been subpoenaed.

On December 3, 2020, while Duncan was president of the state Senate, Giuliani spread conspiracy theories about widespread irregularities and fraud in the state during a Georgia Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing about election integrity. Jordan was in attendance.

At the hearing, Trump’s team presented a video of what they claimed was evidence of fraud from election night ballot tabulating in Fulton County, allegations that were investigated by the FBI, Department of Justice and state election officials – and proven to be erroneous.

The recent subpoenas are the clearest indication Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis intends to seek indictments in her long-running criminal probe into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Willis told CNN affiliate WXIA at an event late last month that “the work is accomplished,” adding later, “We’ve been working for two and half years. We’re ready to go.”

Sources expect Willis’ team to spend roughly two days presenting its case before one of the two grand juries meeting regularly in Fulton County with the power to issue indictments. Willis has said she will make her charging announcements before September 1.

The subpoenas for grand jury testimony call on the witnesses to appear before the grand jury during the month of August and state that witnesses will get a 48-hour notice when they are required to appear. Multiple people who were subpoenaed told CNN they have not yet been notified of an appearance date.

Duncan on Monday would not comment on the timing of his expected appearance in front of the grand jury: “I don’t want to infringe on any details of the investigation, so I’ll leave that offline and off of this commentary here. But I’m committed to telling the truth – I know a number of people are around this process.”

Duncan, Jordan and Chidi were all part of the group of 75 witnesses who previously testified before the special grand jury Willis used last year to gather evidence in her investigation.

The-CNN-Wire
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