Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and his attorney John A. Burlingame outside the Fairfax County courthouse Wednesday, after a judge ruled Gingrich must testify before a special grand jury in Georgia investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Washington Post photo by Tom Jackman
A Fairfax County judge rejected an attempt Wednesday by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) to evade a summons for his grand jury testimony in Georgia, where a Fulton County prosecutor is investigating efforts by supporters of then-President Trump to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis sought Gingrich’s testimony as an out-of-state witness for her special grand jury probe under the “Uniform Act,” which allows one state to secure witnesses from another state. Fulton County Judge Robert C.I. McBurney then issued an order last month for Gingrich to appear before the special grand jury. A court in the state where the witness lives must then approve that order, known as a “certificate of material witness.”
Gingrich’s lawyer, John A. Burlingame, argued that the Uniform Act did not cover special grand juries such as the one in Georgia, which does not have the power to issue indictments or subpoena out-of-state witnesses. But Fairfax County Judge Robert J. Smith rejected that argument.
“What it comes down to is I have a statute before me … that refers to ‘a grand jury investigation,'” Smith said. “It doesn’t make the distinction between special grand jury or a regular grand jury. I think I have to read the statute as it’s written … I think this falls within the statute. The summons will issue.”
Burlingame asked Smith to stay his order so that Gingrich might appeal. “I’m not going to do that,” the judge replied. “I’m going to sign it now and get things going.”
Gingrich, 79, declined to comment on the ruling after the hearing. Burlingame said he had not decided whether to appeal the ruling, even without a stay. The certificate requires Gingrich “to be in attendance and testify” on Nov. 16.
Gingrich is one of several Trump supporters who have fought the summons to testify before the “special purpose grand jury” in Fulton County. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows have also turned to the courts to block the grand jury summons, and have so far been unsuccessful. Former Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani appeared before the special grand jury in August. The grand jury is expected to deliver its findings to Willis, who will then decide whether to pursue criminal charges against anyone.
Willis became interested in hearing from Gingrich after the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol sent him a letter on Sept. 1, alleging that he had taken a number of steps to try to reverse the election outcome in Georgia and nationally. Based on those allegations, the committee requested Gingrich testify before them, and Gingrich agreed to appear privately on Nov. 21.
Burlingame argued that having Gingrich also testify before the Georgia special grand jury was duplicative and onerous. “It’s not like traveling across the Chain Bridge,” Burlingame said of his client, who lives in McLean. “He’s being asked to travel to Atlanta and back.” Instead, Burlingame offered, Gingrich could provide his transcribed testimony before the Jan. 6 committee to Fulton County when it was done.
Fairfax Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Chaim Mandelbaum responded that the Fulton County investigation was “specifically looking at the question of whether or not Georgia law was violated, which is not necessarily the focus of the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation. As a result, the court in Fulton County is likely to have specific questions and look at specific facts that the Jan. 6 committee may not.”
The House committee’s letter, signed by Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), alleged that Gingrich urged top Trump advisers to rely on false claims about voter fraud in Georgia to create advertising which would outrage the public. “Among the numerous emails you exchanged regarding purported election fraud,” Thompson wrote, Gingrich “suggested that the advertisements include a ‘call-to-action’ of pressuring state officials,” to air nationally.
“The goal is to arouse the country’s anger,” Gingrich supposedly wrote to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign adviser Jason Miller.
The letter also accused Gingrich of participating in “the fake elector scheme,” in which slates of electors who had not been certified by their states would be submitted to Congress in an attempt to stop the electoral college certification on Jan. 6. Even after the Jan. 6 riot had ended, Thompson’s letter states, Gingrich wrote to Meadows at 10:42 p.m. that night to ask if there were “letters from state legislators about decertifying electors?”
“Accordingly,” Thompson wrote to Gingrich, “you appear to have been involved with President Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of the election results, even after the attack on the Capitol.”
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
