Michael Flynn appears before Atlanta grand jury probe into Trump’s election subversion

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn is appearing Thursday before an Atlanta-area special grand jury probing efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

CNN spotted Flynn, who was escorted by a small entourage, walk up the stairs of the Superior Court of Fulton County shortly before 1 p.m. on Thursday.

Last month, a judge in Florida ordered Flynn to testify, saying the former Trump administration official “is indeed material and necessary in the special grand jury proceeding in the state of Georgia.”

Flynn’s attorneys had argued that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is overseeing the investigation, “overstepped her authority,” so he should not be required to travel to Atlanta to testify because there is an “utter lack of facts” to support that Flynn is a necessary witness.

Fulton County prosecutors want the grand jury to hear from Flynn about a December 18, 2020, meeting he had with Trump, attorney Sidney Powell and others associated with the Trump campaign, according to a court filing.

During the heated Oval Office meeting, Flynn and Powell floated outrageous suggestions about overturning the election, CNN previously reported. The meeting occurred just three weeks after Trump pardoned Flynn near the end of his tenure.

Prosecutors in Georgia are also interested in hearing from Flynn about his December 2020 interview on the conservative media outlet Newsmax, where he said that Trump “could order – within the swing states, if he wanted to – he could take military capabilities, and he could place them in those states and basically re-run an election in each of those states,” according to a court filing.

Flynn invoked his Fifth Amendment right during a deposition earlier this year before the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021.

In 2017, Flynn lost his job as national security adviser under Trump and pleaded guilty in federal court after lying to the FBI and then-Vice President Mike Pence while serving in the Trump White House.