Judge punts Rudy Giuliani grand jury testimony to Aug. 17, if health permits

A Georgia judge Tuesday granted Rudy Giuliani's request to delay his testimony before an Atlanta-area grand jury investigating interference in the 2020 presidential election, setting a tentative date of Aug. 17, if his health allows.

The personal attorney for former President Donald Trump had been scheduled to appear Tuesday before a special Fulton County grand jury, but Giuliani's lawyers said his doctors had not cleared him for air travel following a a recent heart procedure.

Previously: Trump allies subpoenaed in Georgia election probe, including Rudy Giuliani and Lindsey Graham

More: Rudy Giuliani seeking to delay Georgia grand jury appearance, cites heart condition

Prosecutors had opposed the postponement, telling Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney that they would pay his bus or train fare to Atlanta, if the former New York mayor was indeed unable to fly.

Giuliani is one of several high-profile Trump aides who have been subpoenaed for testimony this month, marking a potentially crucial stretch for the Atlanta investigation.

More: Georgia election investigation heats up. Giuliani, Eastman facing dates with grand jury

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is expected to challenge his subpoena in federal court Wednesday, while Trump lawyers John Eastman and Jenna Ellis also face dates with the special panel this month.

In Giuliani's case, Fulton County officials have outlined multiple areas of inquiry.

The former New York mayor, suspended from practicing law in New York and Washington, D.C., for his election-fraud allegations, had made wide-ranging claims that voting systems altered Georgia ballots, while ignoring a hand-count audit that confirmed President Joe Biden's victory in the state.

Giuliani also asserted that about 65,000 underage voters, more than 2,500 felons and 800 dead people voted in the state. All of those claims have been debunked by the Georgia secretary of state, which found no underage voters, only 74 potential felony voters and only two votes that may have been improperly cast in the name of dead voters.

According to court documents seeking Giuliani's grand jury appearance, Fulton County authorities are highlighting the Trump lawyer's Dec. 3, 2020, appearance before the Georgia State Senate in which he offered a video recording of election workers at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, purporting to show “suitcases” of unlawful ballots from unknown sources, outside the view of election poll watchers.

Within 24 hours of the state Senate hearing, the video had been discredited by the secretary of state's office, concluding "no voter fraud of any kind had taken place."

The push for testimony in the Atlanta inquiry is one of several investigations weighing on the former president. On Monday, the FBI dramatically escalated a federal inquiry into Trump's handling of classified government documents when agents searched the former president's Mar-a-Lago, Florida estate.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rudy Giuliani's Georgia grand jury testimony pushed to Aug. 17