(WSPA/The Hill) – A Fulton County, Ga., grand jury suggested charges for a more sweeping group of allies of former President Trump — including three U.S. senators — as it evaluated charging recommendations for those involved with election interference after he lost the 2020 contest.
One of the senators was U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham. Graham attended the South Carolina Apple Fest Luncheon Friday in Westminster, South Carolina. The luncheon was held at Westminister Baptist Church where Graham spoke about the recommended charges.
“I am very worried about the country right now,” Graham said.
As a current U.S. senator and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he said he did his job when he voted to certify the election in all states, including Georgia.
Graham said he did not find evidence of mass voter fraud but did have concerns about the mail in ballot systems.
“This is troubling for the country,” Graham said. “We can’t criminalize senators for doing their job when they have a constitutional requirement to fulfill. It would be irresponsible for me, as chairman of the committee, not to try and find out what happened.”
Senator Graham said he fears the legal system in our country is being used as a political tool.
“Were you surprised these charges were recommended against you?” 7NEWS asked.
“I was totally surprised, yeah,” Graham said. “I thought I made it pretty clear that my phone call was to find out what I should be doing as a senator. I never suggested anybody set aside an election. I never said go find votes. I never said anything other than trying to find out how the mail in ballot system worked and I was really confused, and I still am quite frankly.”
Graham testified in front of the special grand jury in November of 2022.
He said his testimony lasted a couple of hours and said he told the truth as he knew it to be.
He said to suggest he is part of a scheme to overturn the 2020 election makes no sense.
“As a United States senator, you owe it to your constituents to be able to explain yourself in one of the most high-profile elections, maybe in U.S. history,” Graham said. “I feel comfortable with my vote to certify the election. I feel comfortable with the questions I asked and at the end of the day I did my job. The day that becomes criminalized is very bad for the country.”
Included among the list of recommended indictments were two former senators from Georgia who ran for reelection in 2020, former Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler and Georgia Lt. Gov Burt Jones.
The report, released in full Friday after a failed effort from Trump to bar its sharing, details the May charging recommendations from a group of 22 jurors tasked with hearing evidence in the case.
After the report was partially released in February, the foreperson of the grand jury made news by suggesting it would include a few surprises.
The 28-page report in many ways aligns with the indictment filed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D), who brought charges against Trump and 18 co-defendants.
But it includes some notable deviations, including recommending charges for Trump-aligned attorney Cleta Mitchell and for Michael Flynn, who briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser. Neither was ultimately included in the August indictment.
The grand jury also recommended charges for Boris Epshteyn, a longtime aide to Trump, who was not charged by Willis but is listed as a not yet indicted co-conspirator in the federal Jan. 6 case.
The report also reveals that many of the indictment recommendations weren’t unanimous, particularly when it came to deciding what charges the fake electors should face.
Graham, Loeffler, Perdue and Flynn all faced recommended charges “with respect to the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.”
Thirteen grand jurors voted to recommend indicting Graham, while seven voted no and one abstained. They voted 17-4 to recommend indicting Perdue and 14-6 for Loeffler.
“One of the dissenting jurors voting against recommending seeking indictments of former Senators Perdue and Loeffler on a RICO claim believes that their statements following the November 2020 election, while pandering to their political base, do not give rise to their being guilty of a criminal conspiracy,” the report states.
With a 16-1 vote, the grand jury overall recommended Perdue also be indicted as part of the “persistent, repeated communications directed to multiple Georgia officials and employees” between November 2020 and January 2021.
Graham, who gave testimony before the grand jury, only appeared after he was ordered by courts to do so in a legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court.
The report further recommends indictments for participants in the infamous call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R). On the call, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” in Georgia that favored him, a request ultimately declined by Georgia’s secretary of state.
Trump and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were ultimately charged in connection with the call to Raffensperger.
But all 18 grand jurors recommended Mitchell, a longtime conservative attorney, be indicted on four counts pertaining to the call. The jurors were more split on two other possible charges for Mitchell — making false statements or writings, and making false official certificates or writings by officers of the state. On those counts, 12 jurors voted in favor of indicting Mitchell, while five voted against and one abstained.
The special grand jury also recommended indictments for Alex Kaufman and Kurt Hilbert, Georgia-based Trump attorneys who were also on the call.
Several pro-Trump individuals involved in helping convince Georgia state legislators of Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud were also recommended for indictments.
Willis ultimately indicted Giuliani and others who spoke at various hearings in Dec. 2020, but the recommendation list was more expansive.
It includes Jacki Pick, an attorney who walked legislators through a video showing election workers counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. The video became the basis for a conspiracy theory that poll workers had processed “suitcases” of illicit ballots.
It also includes Georgia state Sen. William Ligon (R), who called for a special session to respond to the false fraud claims.
