Although the investigation takes place largely out of public view, the federal probe by Special Counsel Jack Smith into potential crimes committed amid efforts after the 2020 presidential election to secure another term for Trump despite his duly documented loss to Biden is continuing to move forward.
ABC was among the outlets reporting in recent days on a subpoena targeting Simpatico Software Systems over work the firm did on behalf of the Trump campaign after the 2020 election to examine claims of voter fraud. Like another outside company tasked with looking into the claims that were circulating, Simpatico — and founder Ken Block — found no evidence to reasonably support the fraud allegations. As outlined in another recent report from The New York Times, awareness of the lack of substance to claims about what happened during the 2020 election — and, by extension, the dearth of reasonably suspected efficacy in efforts to undercut that election’s results — could support allegations of wire fraud.
After Trump’s 2020 loss, his team and institutional partners raised hundreds of millions of dollars, and in general, you can’t just lie. The Times said federal investigations had been looking into areas including Republican relationships with Salesforce, an email marketing vendor. A bulk of the monies raised went towards political operations elsewhere in Trump’s circles. All of these circumstances were also points of interest for the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot and January 6.
Even though Block said at the time and more recently that no evidence of fraud emerged, he still made a lot of money from it, making reportedly $735,000 for conducting the doomed investigative work. There weren’t a lot of details available about the specific documents sought from Block and Simpatico, although it would seem reasonable to suspect they’d include communications and potential information about who in the campaign and Trump political operation was made available of the findings, potentially implicating such individuals in knowing wrongdoing. Smith, in his role as a special prosecutor, has the ability to bring or recommend charges. Elsewhere, Trump continues avidly promoting election lies and supporting criminally charged participants in the Capitol violence, including during a recent campaign swing through New Hampshire.
