US Justice forces former Trump chief of staff to testify for possible electoral interference

MADRID, 30 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously ruled Tuesday that Mark Meadows, former US President Donald Trump's chief of staff, must testify before a special Georgia grand jury investigating alleged interference in the vote count of the 2020 elections.

The highest judicial body in South Carolina, where Trump's former chief of staff resides, has upheld a lower court ruling in late October that ordered Meadows to comply with the subpoena, despite the fact that he had filed an appeal arguing that the proper documents had not been submitted to request their presence in Georgia, CNN has reported.

"We have reviewed the arguments raised by (Meadows) and find them manifestly without merit," the South Carolina Supreme Court said in its ruling.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is leading the investigation, needed to get approval from a South Carolina judge before she could compel Meadows to testify, since she lives in another state, The Hill has reported. .

Meanwhile, in the original summons Meadows was supposed to appear this Wednesday, although it is now unclear if that date will continue to stand.

The case began after an alleged conversation came to light in January 2021 in which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to do everything possible to find the slightly more than 11,000 votes needed to reverse the victory. by Joe Biden.

After the news of the subpoena was known, the legal team of Meadows, who was President Trump's chief of staff during the last bars of his term, has acknowledged that he plans to appeal the ruling, according to the American newspaper 'The New York Times'.

Willis already quoted Meadows in August of this year, noting that he had been part of a meeting, also attended by Trump himself, that addressed rhetoric over accusations of voter fraud and the certification of votes in Georgia and other state.

Willis has previously accused Meadows of trying to attend an audit of the Georgia election results and of being involved in the aforementioned phone call to Raffensberger.