Special Counsel investigations of Defendant Trump: let's count 'em.

Aaaahhh…isn’t it great how the worm, as well as the world, turns?  It seems like only yesterday that we were celebrating the indictment of Defendant Trump for his theft and mishandling of classified documents, 37 delicious counts in all.  And now Special Counsel Jack Smith gets to turn his attention to all the schemes and scams run by Defendant Trump in his two month long attempt to overturn the election he knew he had lost on Nov 3, 2020.

It turns out that Smith has been running two grand juries in Washington D.C. and one in Florida, the latter and one of the D.C. grand juries devoted to uncovering the facts of how Defendant Trump managed to spirit several hundred classified documents from the White House and what he did with them once they got to his resort/club/residence, Mar a Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.

And now the third grand jury in Washington D.C. takes center stage, the one that has been investigating the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and the events leading up to it, a tall task if there ever was one.  Special Counsel Smith has led a great parade of potential co-conspirators of Defendant Trump before the grand jury to tell what they know about multiple matters that were involved in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. 

It appears that Special Counsel Smith has been focusing his attention on the fake elector scheme concocted by one of Defendant Trump’s lawyers, John Eastman, but that’s not all.  The grand jury has heard testimony from multiple witnesses to a White House meeting on Dec. 18, 2020, where a plan was discussed to have the military seize voting machines and re-run the presidential election under military supervision.  Another of Defendant Trump’s many lawyers, Sidney Powell, was at that meeting, and so was his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.  Another of Defendant Trump’s lawyers, Rudy “I’m Wiping My Face as Fast as I Can” Giuliani, was also at the meeting, along with former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone.  Giuliani met with prosecutors from the Special Counsel’s office for eight hours recently as part of a so-called proffer arrangement requested by Giuliani’s lawyers.  The purpose of a proffer is so that someone who is under suspicion of having committed a crime – that would be Giuliani – can meet with prosecutors and tell them what he knows about the real target of their investigation – that would be Defendant Trump – in an attempt to get the prosecutors not to charge him, or to charge him with lesser offenses that might not land him in prison.  Giuliani was reportedly questioned at length about the Dec. 18 Oval Office meeting, as well as the fake elector scheme.  Giuliani had met with Defendant Trump in the Oval Office with John Eastman when he pitched the fake elector scheme, so he is thought to know quite a bit about it.

The grand jury has subpoenaed Sidney Powell to ask her about the Dec. 18 meeting, as well as another lawyer, Emily Newman, who worked with Powell on some of the spurious lawsuits that were filed in battleground states lost by Defendant Trump seeking to overturn the outcome of those elections.  Prosecutors from Smith’s office have met with Michael Roman, who served as the head of election day operations for Defendant Trump’s campaign in 2020, as part of another proffer agreement.  Roman’s meeting with prosecutors followed grand jury testimony given by his deputy, Gary Michael Brown, about attempts Roman made to get certificates for fake electors from the states of Michigan and Wisconsin to a Pennsylvania congressman who had been helping with the fake elector scheme.  Roman is said to be cooperating with prosecutors as part of his proffer agreement, which could be very bad news for others involved in the fake elector scheme, as well as for Defendant Trump himself.  Subpoenas from the grand jury have asked for any and all communications a suspect had with other lawyers involved in the fake elector scheme, as well as communications with Defendant Trump himself.

Previously, the FBI and prosecutors for the Office of the Special Counsel had subpoenaed the cell phones of John Eastman, lawyer Boris Epshteyn and former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, who was involved in an attempt to get the Georgia legislature to hold hearings on evidence of alleged fraud in the state as part of an attempt to overturn the election there.  Here is a list of other associates of Defendant Trump who had their cell phones seized by the FBI as part of the probe into attempts to overturn the election, including the fake elector scheme: 

Rudy Giuliani.  The FBI seized 18 of his electronic devices.

Michael Roman.  Discussed above.

Michael McDonald.  Nevada Republican Chairman involved with fake elector scheme.

Boris Epshteyn.  Present in the Warwick Hotel “war room” in days before Jan. 6 insurrection.

John Eastman.  Discussed above.

Mike Lindell.  My Pillow Company owner and election fraud conspiracy nut.

Scott Perry.  Pennsylvania Republican congressman who introduced Jeffrey Clark to Defendant Trump.

Victoria Toensing.  Lawyer close to Rudy Giuliani involved in lawsuits in battleground states to overturn election.

Special Counsel Smith has also subpoenaed multiple people connected with Defendant Trump’s fund-raising efforts after he lost the election on Nov. 3, 2020.  The Washington Post reported that the Special Counsel is pursuing a theory that Defendant Trump used a scheme similar to that of his former associate Steve Bannon when he raised money to build the wall on the border with Mexico and then spent it for other purposes, including personal travel, luxury hotels, and payments to himself.  Defendant Trump sent out fund raising emails that promised to use the money raised on lawsuits to overturn the election.  Prosecutors have developed evidence that much of that money went straight into Defendant Trump’s personal campaign super PAC.  It is illegal under federal wire fraud statutes to solicit money for one purpose and then use it for another.  Political fraudster and New York Congressman George Santos was recently indicted under wire fraud statutes for a similar crime.

And it doesn’t stop there.  Prosecutors for the Special Counsel have questioned Defendant Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Homeland Security Deputy Ken Cuccinelli.  They are known to have questioned multiple witnesses about lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Jenna Ellis, and prosecutors met last month in Atlanta with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger about attempts to overturn the election in Georgia, including the phone call during which Defendant Trump asked Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” so that he could reverse the outcome of the election in the state.  Former Vice President Mike Pence was also subpoenaed and appeared before the D.C. grand jury, presumably to be questioned about Defendant Trump’s attempt to get him to accept the ballots from battleground state fake electors on Jan. 6.

If that’s not enough for you, the D.C. grand jury has also been looking into the firing of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs.  He took a public position soon after the election that Defendant Trump’s claims of voter fraud “either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.”  Krebs called claims by Sidney Powell a “hoax” and “nonsense” that voting machines controlled by dead Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had changed votes for Trump into votes for Biden.   On Nov. 17, 2020, two weeks after he lost the election, Defendant Trump fired Krebs.

The Special Counsel is also said to be interviewing witnesses who were present at the Warwick Hotel “war room” in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection.  Subpoenas have been issued to Steve Bannon and John Eastman, who were present at the Warwick “war room,” as well as to former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who was also present in the Oval Office for the Dec. 18 meeting with Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn.

Is that enough for you?  Watch this space.  The D.C. grand jury is still sitting, and the Jan. 6 investigation into Defendant Trump is wide open.