As Trump keeps posting odd rants about him on his knock-off social media site Truth Social, Special Counsel Jack Smith is continuing his investigative work.
Reports indicate Smith has issued a subpoena to local authorities in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, in which Pittsburgh is located. Although a communications director for the county government declined to provide many specifics about the subpoena when asked by CNN, other subpoenas sent in the special counsel’s investigation to state and local officials in locales from Nevada to Georgia have sought any records of communications with Trump or top allies of his including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman in a months-long period leading up to the 2020 election. Also included in the demands for copies of communications or records reflecting those interactions were the Trump campaign itself and employees or agents of it.
Smith’s Georgia subpoena was to the office of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who infamously faced intense pressure from Trump and certain allies of his to take action on the 2020 election results after Joe Biden nabbed a win in Georgia. (Raffensperger resisted the then-president’s entreaties.) CNN notes that Trump’s campaign also challenged the validity of thousands of mail-in ballots cast across Allegheny and Philadelphia counties in 2020’s elections that were submitted without information like dates and names fully filled out. The state Supreme Court eventually dealt with that case, concluding that the issues with the ballots were not enough to impact the validity of the votes from otherwise eligible voters. The court said the problems, although “constituting technical violations of the Election Code,” didn’t “warrant the wholesale disenfranchisement of thousands of Pennsylvanian voters.”
In connection to other litigation with the Trump team’s involvement challenging large quantities of 2020 ballots cast in Pennsylvania, Giuliani — who participated in arguments in the case — is now facing the possibility of disbarment after the disciplinary counsel overseeing lawyers in D.C. scored a tentative win in their ethics case against him. A subcommittee from the district’s Board on Professional Responsibility found the counsel’s team proved it was likely Giuliani violated at least one ethics rule for lawyers, and the process going forward includes an opportunity for the disciplinary counsel’s team to present its specific recommendations for Rudy’s punishment. An investigator from that team on the case already spoke approvingly of disbarment.
