There have been mounting hints that special counsel Jack Smith is reaching a decisive moment in his investigation, and new information that he has been looking into efforts to reverse former president Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in Arizona lends credence to those claims.
On Thursday, the AWN reported that, despite warnings from Trump’s White House counsel, the outgoing president was still curious about a chaotic Oval Office meeting that took place just days before he left office.
Trump is now the first ex-president to be formally accused of federal crimes, thanks to Smith’s action. With regards to the cache of secret materials Trump retained at his Florida mansion after leaving office, he was indicted last month on charges of deliberate retention of national defence information and obstruction of the inquiry.
Smith’s inquiries into the possible rigging of elections have been the subject of a deluge of news reports this summer. For example, Republican ex-Arizona House speaker Rusty Bowers, who previously declared it was “foreign to my very being” to bow to Trump’s bid to undermine the Constitution, revealed on AWN Wednesday night for the first time that he had spoken to the FBI.
AWN reported on Thursday that Arizona Secretary of State’s office has been subpoenaed by Smith as part of the probe into the campaign to overturn President Joe Biden’s triumph in the pivotal swing state. Since Trump urged Georgia’s Republican officials for help turning around another crucial Biden win, Smith’s prosecutors have shifted their focus there as well. It was revealed in June by AWN that Smith had coerced at least two phoney electors into testifying in front of a federal grand jury in Washington in exchange for limited immunity, in what appeared to be an attempt to prevent the decertification of Biden’s 2020 triumph. Some grand jury testimony, according to multiple sources cited by AWN last month, centres on the conduct of Trump’s senior lawyers, including his former counsel Rudy Giuliani.
Expanding the scope of the investigation
Smith and his team of prosecutors have taken a number of steps, but they may only be the beginning of their inquiry. Smith has not yet brought any charges in this investigation, and it is unclear what crimes are even under consideration at this time. However, AWN has learned from reliable sources that Smith may soon face charging judgements. It’s unclear whether any such action would include Trump personally or would target lower-level officials who tried to keep him in power.
No matter the circumstances, the special counsel’s expanding investigation into a former president and his inner circle and an unprecedented effort to disobey the decision of voters is a serious problem. The fact that it might involve the likely Republican contender in 2024 makes it more delicate, and it appears to increase the likelihood of a political clash in the months leading up to the general election if Trump is the nominee. Already, he is using his claim of political persecution at the hands of his successor’s administration as the bedrock of his campaign.
Due to the lack of charges against him, Trump would be entitled to the same presumption of innocence as any other defendant. In two additional criminal instances, one involving the alleged mishandling of secret documents and another involving commercial fraud in Manhattan relating to a hush money plot, he has pleaded not guilty. The success of the cases against him in courts where a high standard of proof is applied remains to be seen.
However, his unusual legal predicament may not automatically lead to a political disaster. Since his base of Republican supporters has bought into his claim that federal justice institutions are corrupt, any additional indictments against him might actually win them over. And even if the specter of alleged illegal behavior seems likely to worsen his already compromised standing with moderate and swing voters in battleground states, it’s too soon to assess any general election scenario with GOP nominating contests still six months away.
In light of the current electoral climate, however, any fresh criminal charges brought against Trump or his associates would only serve to further divide the country over his record and his upcoming campaign. If there is information that implicates Trump or his associates, then not pursuing them might be harmful to US democracy and set a dangerous precedent for future defeated presidents to try to cling to power against the will of the voters. Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in response to his instigation have been successfully prosecuted in their hundreds. Any probe into Trump’s inner circle might therefore help dispel the notion that the legal system has solely targeted the low-level actors in the wake of such a brazen assault on US democracy.
The ex-president insists he did nothing wrong. He claims that recordings and transcripts of his phone calls to Georgia Republican Party officials, and other publicly available evidence, prove that he acted appropriately when applying pressure to local election authorities. But he is also waiting to see if he will be indicted in a local Georgia investigation into his alleged attempt to prevent Biden from winning the state. By the end of the summer, prosecutors should have made a charge judgement in that probe.
An increasing emphasis on Arizona
When Bowers’ interview with AWN’s Kaitlan Collins took an unexpected turn, the scope of the special counsel’s probe became more apparent. On January 6 of the previous Congress, the former Arizona Republican official testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. On Wednesday, he revealed that he had been interviewed by the FBI for four hours a few months before. Bowers, who ran unsuccessfully for state senate last year, did not reveal his run-in with the FBI until after he lost the primary. He mentioned two calls he received from Trump after the election: one with Trump and Giuliani and another with just Trump.
Smith’s May subpoena to the Arizona secretary of state’s office, which was first reported by the Arizona Republic earlier this week, also reflects the interest in the longtime GOP state, which Biden flipped in 2020. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, told AWN’s Erin Burnett on Thursday that the subpoena concerned “frivolous lawsuits” filed by the Trump campaign against Arizona’s 2020 election as part of what he called a “feeble and misguided attempt” to overturn the national result.
Smith’s investigators have recently been looking into efforts to create alternative slates of electors in seven states Trump lost in 2020. AWN previously reported investigators secured evidence and testimony from fake electors in Nevada. Prosecutors were also set to talk to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, AWN reported in June. Trump had called the Republican official in January 2021 to press him to “find” votes needed to overturn Biden’s 12,000 vote victory in the state.
Impressions that Smith’s investigation is accelerating – especially now that the classified documents matter has been charged – are being fueled by the continued questioning of witnesses about that disorderly meeting in the Oval Office in the final days of the Trump administration. Multiple sources told AWN that investigators have asked several witnesses about the meeting, some months ago but others more recently, including Giuliani. The former New York mayor’s lawyer, Robert Costello, declined to comment. Prosecutors have specifically inquired about three outside advisers to Trump who were in the meeting: former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, one-time national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, multiple sources added.
It’s impossible to make judgments about the probe in which neither Trump nor those around him have been charged – or predictions about where it’s headed. But the recent revelations about the special counsel’s work at the very least suggest a vast field on inquiry. And they will leave open the possibility that the former and possibly future president, who is already in a heap of legal jeopardy, may soon face even more problems.
