Photo: Republican National Committee / Getty Images
For: The opinion Updated Jan 10, 2023, 23:41 pm EST
The Special Counsel’s Team jack smith quoted former lawyer for Donald Trump, Rudy Giulianiand asked him to turn over the records to a federal grand jury, as part of an investigation into the former president’s campaign fundraising donald trump after the 2020 electiona person familiar with the subpoena told CNN.
The subpoena, which was sent out more than a month ago and had not been previously reported, srequests documents from Rudy Giuliani regarding payments he received around the 2020 electionwhen Giuliani filed numerous lawsuits on behalf of Donald Trump to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election, that unnamed source told CNN.
Prosecutors also subpoenaed other witnesses close to Trump, specifically requesting documents related to the disbursements of the Save America PACTrump’s main fundraising operation set up shortly after the 2020 election, according to other sources with knowledge of the investigation.
Taken together, the subpoenas demonstrate growing interest by prosecutors in tracking down money raised after the 2020 election as part of their sweeping criminal investigation into Trump’s efforts to undo his loss of the presidency.
Save America was part of broader fundraising efforts by Trump and the Republican Party that raised more than $250 million after the election.
Since then, the political action committee has compensated several lawyers who now represent Trump and his allies in investigations related to January 6.
Subpoenas for witnesses other than Giuliani were served in late December, according to the other sources.
The information prosecutors are seeking is still being collected, the sources said. With Giuliani, investigators have prioritized getting financial information from him, one person said.
The Giuliani investigation stemmed from David Rody, a former top prosecutor in New York who specializes in gang and conspiracy cases. and is helping Smith examine a broader criminal conspiracy after the 2020 election, according to some of the sources.
After the election, Trump and the Republican National Committee raised millions of dollars while telling supporters that the election was being stolen from them, marketing the fundraising effort as election advocacy.
At that moment, some officials working on the fundraising effort knew that Joe Biden’s election victory was legitimate, despite Trump’s insistence that it was fraudulent, the House Select Committee found in its own investigation.
Giuliani is likely to be a central figure in any post-election investigation into Trump’s inner political circles.
In addition to the financial investigation, Smith’s office is also looking into potential criminal cases surrounding the Trump campaign’s use of fake voters in battleground states and pressure on Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election result. In all of those schemes, Giuliani was a central player.