(PresidentialHill.com)- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is taking a lot of heat for not recusing himself from an issue that many liberals believe he should have walked away from.
In this case, Thomas recently granted a temporary stay that will protect South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham from having to testify in a Georgia election tampering case.
It’s still possible that Graham might be forced to testify in that case, but Thomas’ order puts a halt on that process while the high court decides whether it wants to weigh in on the issue as a group.
The case in question is initiated by the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office in Georgia, which is examining phone calls made to various electors in the state following the 2020 presidential election. Graham is one of the people who made some of those calls to key legislators in the state, apparently calling for reviews to be done into whether former President Donald Trump actually won the vote there.
The 11th Circuit Court ruled that Graham had to testify in front a grand jury in the case. Thomas’ recent ruling just prevents that testimony from happening for a period of time.
It’s still possible that the Supreme Court could take on the appeal from Graham and rule in the District Attorney’s favor, or it could refuse to take on the case at all. In either of those instances, Graham would be forced to testify.
Georgia officials have been investigating the situation surrounding the phone calls for months now. At the center of it all is a phone call that Trump himself made as president to Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state from Georgia. Audio clips of that phone call show Trump urging Raffensperger to “find” sufficient votes to change the state’s outcome to him rather than Democrat Joe Biden.
The DA is alleging that Graham contacted officials in Georgia. Graham says that he made those calls simply to discuss what methods they used to verify the signatures on envelopes and ballots, but Raffensperger tells a different story.
The Georgia Secretary of State has alleged that Graham suggested that the state throw out many votes that were cast legally so that Trump would win the state.
Graham has fought the subpoena that was issued to him to testify in front of the grand jury in Georgia. In seeking intervention from the Supreme Court, Graham has argued that it would be against the Constitution to require him to testify about what he did.
He says that would be the case because the phone calls he held were done ‘in the course of his official work,” and that this “reflects a protected ‘legislative investigation’ — and that questioning about it, as such, is prohibited.”
He further tried to back up his claims, and get the courts on his side, by saying the information he gathered by making the phone calls in question in fact assured him that Biden is the “legitimate president of the United States.”
