Georgia election interference indictment: What to know about Rudy Giuliani

A Georgia grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies, including Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani surprised many people when he arrived at the State Capitol in December 2020, just weeks after the election.

Even so, he arrived to applause from many supporters there to watch the testimony at the state Senate subcommittee hearing looking into allegations of massive voter fraud -- allegations later proven untrue by state and federal investigations.

[READ: Former President Donald Trump among 19 indicted in Georgia election interference case]

Once inside, acting as then-President Donald Trump’s attorney, Giuliani began to weave a story about how the Georgia state legislature had the constitutional authority to toss out the popular vote, meet in special session and then select their own slate of electors that would vote for Trump.

“This is your power, your obligation, and I know it’s surprising. I’ve been before state legislatures who didn’t realize it and really, ‘Do we really have this power?’ Then, once reading the constitution and the federalist papers, clearly, it’s yours,” Giuliani testified.

But legal expert after legal expert, including Gov. Brian Kemp’s own general counsel said that was not true, no legislature ever had the legal authority to toss out the popular vote and select a president.

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But Giuliani persisted in his testimony.

“You are the final arbiters of who the electors should be, and whether the process is fair or not, and the other way to look at it, it’s your responsibility if a false or fraudulent count is submitted to the United States government. It’s clear that the count you have right now is false,” Giuliani said.

But again, it wasn’t. Multiple state and federal investigations showed the vote count was accurate.

The Jan. 6 Committee said this testimony and Giuliani’s testimony before other state legislators was part of a grand scheme to throw out the Biden electors from key states like Georgia and replace them with Trump electors -- a scheme that eventually failed.

More than a year later, Giuliani was called before the Fulton County special purpose grand jury to testify about all this.

He only arrived after fighting the subpoena, saying his doctor hadn’t cleared him to fly after a medical procedure. A Fulton County judge advised him to drive then.

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