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Former Trump administration chief of staff Mark Meadows has been ordered by a South Carolina judge to appear before an Atlanta-area grand jury in relation to a 2020 election meddling investigation, CNN reported on Wednesday (October 26).
“I am going to find that the witness is material and necessary to the investigation and that the state of Georgia is assuring not to cause undue hardship to him,” said Pickens County Court Judge Edward Miller at the conclusion of a hearing Wednesday morning.
The issue stemmed from Meadows now living in South Carolina and Atlanta-area prosecutors moving for an order for the former chief of staff to comply with the subpoena.
Meadows' attorney James Bannister told CNN that his client will appeal the ruling.
The Fulton County district attorney's office in Georgia said there are multiple dates in November that can accommodate Meadows' testimony in relation to the special grand jury probe it is overseeing.
“This is not a political hearing,” Miller told Bannister when he suggested the Atlanta probe had a partisan motivation.
The special grand jury investigation into allegations of attempts to manipulate Georgia's 2020 election results is being led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and was launched following the infamous call between former President Donald Trump and Georgia's secretary of state Brad Raffensperger in which Trump requested that Raffensperger "find" votes that would've secured his re-election.
The investigation has since grown to include a fake electors plot in which Trump allies have blamed voter fraud and other claims for the loss in the historically Republican-favored state.