- Rudy Giuliani did not appear before a grand jury in Georgia on Tuesday due to medical issues.
- A doctor wrote a note saying Giuliani was not allowed to travel by plane after heart surgery.
- A state judge suggested she take a road trip instead of flying to testify in the Fulton County election inquiry.
A Georgia state judge got an idea how Rudy Giuliani could testify in Georgia after Trump ally said he couldn’t because of a health issue: the in a road trip.
Giuliani – who had been ordered to appear before a grand jury as part of Fulton County prosecutors’ investigation into 2020 election interference – did not appear in court on Tuesday after a doctor’s note appeared. said he could not travel by plane.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney therefore suggested that Giuliani travel on “a train or a bus or an Uber or whatever” to get to court by Aug. 17.
“I’m confident he can find a way — short of a Greyhound — to get him to Atlanta,” McBurney said during a Tuesday hearing with Giuliani’s attorneys and prosecutors. “Do it in 3 legs. [Do] do you know people in dc? Spend the night there.”
The grand jury is investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies tried to interfere in the results of the state’s 2020 general election.
Giuliani’s attorney, William Thomas Jr., said the former New York City mayor and Trump attorney underwent surgery to implant heart stents in early July, which prevents him from getting on a plane.
His lawyers offered Giuliani a Zoom call or meeting with prosecutors in New York, but both options were denied by Fulton’s special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, in court.
The back and forth over Giuliani’s appearance began when his attorneys contacted Georgia prosecutors last week saying a recent medical procedure would prevent him from attending the hearing, according to court records.
McBurney excused him from the originally scheduled testimony, but called Tuesday’s hearing in his place.
Prosecutors presented evidence they said showed Giuliani was okay with going to the hearing. They shared documents showing Giuliani bought plane tickets to Rome, Italy, and Zurich, Switzerland, for flights between July 22 and July 29 – after his medical procedure.
Tuesday, his the lawyers said “no such trip has ever taken place”, and that he had been invited to a conference abroad, so “presumably” the organizers or some other party bought the tickets on his behalf.
He was due to give a speech in Rome, but they canceled the appearance “solely because of his health”.
Prosecutors also included a screenshot of an August 1 Tweeter which shows Giuliani in New Hampshire. Thomas said he traveled to the state “by a private car in which he was the passenger.”
Giuliani was one of Trump’s allies who created so-called alternative lists of pro-Trump voters in an effort to alter election results in states the former president lost in 2020 – one of them being Georgia.