The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fulton DA to seek Wood’s testimony
Attorney was big proponent of conspiracy theories in aftermath of Georgia’s last presidential election.
Fulton County prosecutors are planning to seek the testimony of conservative Atlanta attorney L. Lin Wood as a special grand jury continues its examination of whether former President Donald Trump and his allies broke any laws as they sought to overturn Georgia’s 2020 elections.
Wood, known for his work as a libel attorney, was one of the most vocal proponents of conspiracy theories in the aftermath of Georgia’s last presidential election.
In a telephone interview Tuesday, Wood said the Fulton County District Attorney’s office is preparing to serve him with a material witness subpoena to compel his testimony before the grand jury. He said he learned of the demand Friday through a lawyer who represents him in a State Bar of Georgia disciplinary case.
The development comes less than a week after a Fulton judge signed off on similar certificates of material witness for four Trump allies who live outside Georgia, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and attorney Sidney Powell. The certificates essentially function as subpoenas once approved by judges in the witnesses’ home states.
Wood said he would comply with the subpoena. He said prosecutors had not informed him that he is a target of the investigation.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, I’ll tell you that,” he said. “I’ll go down there and tell them what they want to know.”
The Fulton DA’S office declined to comment. Ibrahim Reyes, Wood’s Florida-based attorney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wood’s name first surfaced publicly in connection with the grand jury investigation last week as part of Powell’s summons.
Her certificate of material witness cites comments Wood made during a December 2021 interview with CNBC as a reason why Powell’s testimony is essential to the investigation.
During that interview, Wood discussed meetings he held at his Lowcountry South Carolina plantation shortly after the 2020 election with Powell, Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Flynn and other prominent Trump supporters.
The meetings were held, Powell’s certificate alleges, “for the purpose of exploring options to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere.”
Wood told CNBC that he remembers “making a couple of phone calls to speak to individuals that (Powell) was trying to talk into being plaintiffs, I believe in Georgia” for election lawsuits.
“I think we had, kind of, passing conversations of what she was learning,” he said of Powell. “I know she talked to me about information about Venezuela.”
Powell’s summons said she “possesses unique knowledge concerning the logistics, planning, and subject matter of the meetings at the South Carolina plantation,” and requests that she come testify before the grand jury Sept. 22.
In December 2020, Wood and Powell appeared at a rally in Alpharetta at which he claimed, without citing evidence, that Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had accepted bribes to throw Georgia’s electoral votes to Joe Biden. He also called on Trump supporters to put their lives on the line for the cause of reversing the election results.
The grand jury is interested in what it has described in recent
Wood told CNBC that he remembers ‘making a couple of phone calls to speak to individuals that (Powell) was trying to talk into being plaintiffs, I believe in Georgia’ for election lawsuits.
subpoenas as “multi-state, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere.”
Wood has lived full time on the South Carolina property since February 2021. But he made a name for himself suing news organizations, including The Atlanta Journal-constitution, for libel on behalf of Richard Jewell, the initial suspect in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996.
An appeals court ultimately dismissed his case against the paper, ruling that the article in question was substantially correct at the time of publication.
Wood has represented others who have felt maligned and disrespected by the government, media and others, including Jonbenet Ramsey’s brother and Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with killing two Black Lives Matter protesters in Wisconsin
in 2020.
On Jan. 6, 2021, shortly before Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory, Wood rallied his 1.1 million Twitter followers.
“This is our time,” he wrote. “Time to take back our country. Time to fight for our freedom.”
‘TODAY IS OUR DAY,” he wrote. Twitter later banned him from the platform.