Scott McDonnell, the county clerk in Dane County, Wisconsin, was quickly preparing to comply with a subpoena for communications with a host of figures around Trump and the former president himself in connection to Jack Smith’s investigation into 2020 election interference.
According to POLITICO, McDonnell “said he had only been in touch with one of the 19 figures listed on the subpoena: Trump’s Wisconsin-based election lawyer James Troupis.” Per the same Tuesday report, the clerk added that “the documents he is sending to the grand jury consist primarily of already-public transcripts from the county’s recount proceedings in 2020,” although “primarily” doesn’t mean “exclusively.” “We’re sending stuff to them today,” McDonnell stated on Tuesday. Separately, he said he was “not aware of any significant communications that have not already been made public.”
Other local authorities subject to the newly revealed subpoenas include officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, and Wayne County, Michigan, the latter of which is where Detroit is located. Detroit was the site of in-person confrontations after the 2020 presidential election between angry Trump supporters and those responsible for counting locally cast ballots. The city was also targeted by a lawsuit this year from the Trump-supported candidate for Secretary of State in Michigan whose failed case originally threatened to disqualify tens of thousands of mail-in ballots residents cast. Local officials in Milwaukee, where another subpoena demanded records of various communications, and Maricopa County also indicated intentions to comply, although it’s of course up to investigators to comb through what’s available for any relevant new leads.
Some of those whose communications with local officials were sought with the subpoenas include Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and lawyers with the Trump campaign like Justin Clark and Matthew Morgan. It has previously been established that a member of the Maricopa County board responsible for certifying local election results met with Giuliani in November of 2020.
Dane County is home to the state capital in Wisconsin, a state where Biden won in 2020 and that was among those highly contested by the team trying to keep Trump in power after the 2020 election despite his loss. Smith is the newly selected special counsel overseeing a pair of Trump probes at the department including the wide-ranging investigation into political schemes supporting Donald’s interference attempts, like the false electors plot. In a slew of states — including Wisconsin, allies to Trump prepared falsified slates of electoral votes despite Biden’s wins. Some credited the moves to just trying to keep Trump’s legal options open, although there was never any legitimate indication the election outcome could be undone through honest and established means because of some nefarious plot valiantly uncovered and stopped.
Image: Gage Skidmore/ Creative Commons
