Election officials in Nevada and New Mexico were among the targets of some of the most recently revealed subpoenas originating with an investigation led by recently selected Special Counsel Jack Smith, whose area of authority includes the Justice Department probe into political schemes after the 2020 presidential election to keep Trump in power despite his loss.
In both states, officials were directed to provide any communications with Trump and associates of his like attorney John Eastman, who helped lead the effort to formulate a plan by which Pence could’ve supposedly blocked the certification in Congress of the last presidential election results. Others whose communications with officials were sought with these subpoenas include Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, according to a Nevada report about that state’s involvement. In Nevada, the reported subpoena was directed to the Clark County Election Department, whose geographical area of authority is the most populated county in the state and has been a target of conspiracy theories about the handling of elections after the elections of both 2020 and 2022. In New Mexico, a subpoena was directed to the office of the Secretary of State, whose team indicated they didn’t have any communications covered by the demands but were happy to make the search.
“We’re pleased to see the special counsel taking a serious look at the efforts to illegally overturn the free and fair results of the 2020 election, which included a frivolous lawsuit by the Trump campaign and a slate of fake Republican electors here in New Mexico,” Alex Curtas, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State in New Mexico, said per new reporting — a report that also noted it wasn’t clear whether any election officials at other levels in the state had received similar demands. Besides the litigation and conspiracy theories targeting Nevada, that state was another on the list where allies of Trump worked to assemble slates of electoral votes on behalf of the then-outgoing president despite his losses in these locales. The Nevada subpoena was apparently dated just days after Smith’s new role was originally announced, while another recently reported subpoena targeted Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who faced consistent pressure from Trump and allies of his to take action on the 2020 results.
The Nevada subpoena apparently sought compliance on a short timeframe, with a grand jury appearance by December 9 or the transfer of materials on what would presumably be a similarly tight schedule. The House committee investigating January 6 has also looked at the scheme to assemble electoral votes for Trump in states Biden won, and that panel will be releasing its final report next week, with potential recommendations for prosecution also imminent. New Mexico state Attorney General Hector Balderas, a Democrat, previously referred the matter of the state’s slate of essentially falsified electoral votes for Trump to federal law enforcement. Although there was also litigation in the state from Trump’s campaign over the 2020 presidential election results, Biden won there by double digits.
