Fulton County grand jury recommended charges against Sen. Lindsey Graham

The Fulton County grand jury that indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies for their effort to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia had also recommended indicting three current and former Republican Senators, according to the grand jury’s full report released on Friday.

The grand jury recommended that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and former Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue be charged with “commission of a crime” for their role in the “national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, focused on efforts in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia,” according to the report.

None of the three Republicans were ultimately charged in the sprawling indictment.

All three pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who oversaw the 2020 election in Georgia in which President Joe Biden beat Trump by 11,779 votes, either to throw out legally cast ballots or to resign from his job so someone else ostensibly could.

Raffensperger said Graham called him before the 2020 election was certified and asked whether Raffensperger could throw out legally cast absentee ballots.

Raffensperger told CNN in November 2020 that he interpreted Graham’s call as, “an implication of look hard and see how many ballots you could throw out.”

The call happened before Trump called Raffensperger in December 2020 and asked him to “find” the exact number of votes that would make Trump the winner of Georgia, even though Biden had won the state.

After fighting the grand jury subpoena in court, Graham ultimately testified before the Fulton County grand jury in November and said he “answered all questions” the panel asked.

Perdue and Loeffler issued a statement in November 2020 that called for Raffensperger to “step down immediately,” accusing Raffensperger of having “failed to deliver honest and transparent elections.”

Both Perdue and Loeffler went on to lose runoff elections for their U.S. Senate seats on Jan. 5, 2021, one day before the insurrection at the United States Capitol. Their losses gave Democrats control of the U.S. Senate.

Ultimately, the grand jury charged Trump and 18 others, who prosecutors allege were involved in a criminal racketeering scheme to overturn Biden’s win in the state.

It’s one of four criminal indictments Trump now faces as he is running for a second, non-consecutive term in the White House.

Trump is charged in Florida with allegedly improperly withholding classified documents, in Washington, D.C., with conspiracy to defraud the United States for his efforts to overturn the election, and in New York with falsifying business records. 

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.