Rudy Giuliani was issued a subpoena late last year in a federal Justice Department investigation led by Special Counsel Jack Smith into pro-Trump fundraising and spending after the 2020 presidential election, according to a new report from CNN.
Giuliani is a longtime Trump ally who was closely involved in attempts after that election to secure another term for Trump, despite his well-documented loss. The reported subpoena sought records related to payments he may have received while working for Trump after the 2020 presidential race concluded. The subpoena “requests documents from Giuliani about payments he received around the 2020 election,” per CNN, summarizing a source’s revelations. The same outlet reported prosecutors have also shown a specific interest in disbursements from Trump’s Save America PAC, a Trump group that remains operational and was involved in massive fundraising efforts after the 2020 presidential race. A lot of that money was raised under perceptibly false pretenses, particularly stolen election claims and the ideas that donations would support fighting the election outcome and the Trump team could reasonably do so at all.
In fact, significant portions of the money didn’t go directly towards any court effort, and it was long clear — and made known to many in Trump’s circles — that there was no real-world opening to reasonably contest the election results and potentially secure a change. CNN says that Giuliani’s subpoena was signed by David Rody, a prosecutor with a background dealing with gang and conspiracy cases. Giuliani evidently previously benefited from payments including $63,400 for travel reimbursements paid to a personal company of his by the Trump campaign in late 2020. A Giuliani company later got $76,500 from a different Trump PAC that was also tied to travel reimbursements. Some of Giuliani’s travel included personally showing up in contested states to plead the then-outgoing president’s case to state legislators.
In Georgia, among the states where he did so, Giuliani later became a target of the criminal investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis into pro-Trump meddling after the 2020 elections. The special grand jury working on the Willis probe recently completed its work, according to a supervising judge, and a hearing is scheduled for later this month over whether to publicly release its findings from over half a year of work. The final report from its investigation may include recommendations for Willis to bring charges, for which she would need approval from a regular grand jury.
UPDATE: The subpoena was reportedly from before Smith came onboard.
