The special counsel investigating Donald Trump could decide whether to file criminal charges against him just weeks after gathering new state documents on pressure to cancel the 2020 election, sources told Bloomberg.
Special Counsel Jack Smith and a team of Justice Department prosecutors are now reviewing emails, letters and other records from the warring countries.
“You can tell it’s moving fast,” Brian Kidd, a former federal prosecutor who served under Smith at the Department of Justice (DOJ), told Bloomberg.
Officials in Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico and Nevada confirmed to Bloomberg that they had complied with a grand jury subpoena from Smith’s office. The material, which was turned over by Nevada and reviewed by Bloomberg, said that Trump’s representative without reason accused the state’s local officials of allowing “fraud and abuse” of the election after Trump lost the election to Joe Biden.
In a recorded call released last year, Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his general counsel in his post-election office to “find” enough votes to turn a loss into a win. “Brothers, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break,” Trump said on the phone.
The subpoenas go to officials in a total of seven states that Biden won and where Trump or his allies coerced politicians and election officials in an effort to distort votes and create “fake” seats of pro-Trump voters.
Officials in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania declined to comment on whether they complied with the subpoena or did not immediately respond, according to Bloomberg.
Smith’s team also closely examined transcripts of testimony recorded by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The testimony included a White House aide who testified that Trump knew he lost the election despite his claims of fraud and a former official who linked Trump to an effort to get fraudulent voters, Bloomberg said.
January 6 committee last month unanimously voted to refer four criminal charges against Trump to the DOJ: Obstructing official proceedings, conspiring to deceive the United States, conspiring to make false statements, and inciting insurrection against the United States.
Smith, who was appointed in November by US Attorney General Merrick Garland just days after Trump announced he would run for president again, is in charge of the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the election he lost and into classified documents that were secretly discovered. Mar-a-Lago, Florida, home.
A federal judge on Wednesday ruled for the DOJ in its battle over the documents. Beryl Howell, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, DC, ordered that Trump’s lawyers must name the private investigator hired by Trump to search the property for the remaining records. The Justice Department may be hoping to learn more details about how the documents were moved and stored at Trump’s properties from its investigators.