Newly available information indicates expansive areas of investigative interest from Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team, who are handling probes both into Donald Trump harboring classified documents after he left office and the ex-president, along with allies, plotting ways to ostensibly secure another term despite Biden winning the 2020 election.
A new report from The New York Times includes fresh details about both what prosecutors are asking and who they’re trying to question. The latter category includes current and former lawyers to Trump like Alina Habba and Alex Cannon. In a different matter, Habba previously attested to personally looking through Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and may have seen federally protected materials there, while Cannon reportedly pushed for Trump to be compliant with federal demands in the dispute over documents. According to the Times, prosecutors are also asking about both Trump’s habits of handling government secrets, which could perhaps point to his conduct around the government docs recovered from Mar-a-Lago after he left office, and third-party research commissioned by the Trump campaign to find evidence of what was imaginary voter fraud.
The lack of such evidence, and knowledge that no such evidence emerged, could point to knowingly going against reality and the relevant legal provisions in the schemes to support another Trump term. Also outlined in the Times is an examination by the investigators working under Smith of the financial dealings around Trump’s Save America PAC. There, evidence could emerge of payments rendered not in actual response to documented services, suggesting something like self-dealing or corrupt financial support for organizations aligned with some of those involved in the political operation. “A vast array of Trump vendors have been subpoenaed,” the Times notes. “Investigators have been posing questions related to how money was paid to other vendors, indicating that they are interested in whether some entities were used to mask who was being paid or if the payments were for genuine services rendered.”
Other developments that recently became the subject of news reports include that Christina Bobb, a lawyer to Trump who signed a false statement to federal authorities that everything covered by a subpoena for classified documents in Donald’s possession was getting returned, provided further answers to investigators — in front of a grand jury. Evan Corcoran, another Trump lawyer who drafted the statement, also provided grand jury testimony, and Smith’s investigation has now also turned to Mike Pence, who as vice president faced intense pressure from Trump and allies of the then-president to take procedural action meant to block the Congressional certification of Joe Biden’s win. The Times notes Smith didn’t receive permission from Attorney General Merrick Garland for the Pence subpoena, although he didn’t require such a sign-off. The special counsel is not required to report on a daily basis to a higher-up in the department. The subpoena for Pence sparked another specific complaint from Trump on social media.
