Former top national security officials testified to a federal grand jury that they frequently advised former President Donald Trump and his associates that the government lacked the authority to seize voting equipment after the 2020 election, according to AWN.
According to three people familiar with the proceedings, Chad Wolf, the former acting Homeland Security secretary, and his former deputy Ken Cuccinelli were questioned about internal administration discussions about DHS seizing voting machines when they appeared before the grand jury earlier this year. According to one of the sources, Cuccinelli stated that he “made clear at all times” that DHS did not have the authority to take such a step.
According to a source familiar with the matter, Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien recounted conversations about seizing voting machines after the 2020 election in a closed-door interview with federal prosecutors earlier this year, including during a heated Oval Office meeting in which Trump participated.
Revelations regarding the private grand jury testimony and O’Brien’s interview, which have not previously been disclosed, show how special counsel Jack Smith and his prosecutors are looking into the numerous ways Trump attempted to overturn his election loss over the advice of some of his senior advisers.
Some of those same officials, including Wolf, Cuccinelli, and O’Brien, as well as others who have so far refused to testify, may now be called back to the grand jury in Washington, DC, to provide additional testimony after a series of pivotal court rulings revealed in recent weeks rejected Trump’s claims of executive privilege.
einsteinerupload of.
Former officials must answer questions about their interactions and talks with the former president, including what he was informed about the absence of proof for election fraud and the legal remedies he could pursue, if they do not have that privilege shield.
This line of inquiry gets to the heart of Smith’s issue in any criminal case he brings: proving that Trump and his associates persisted their attempts despite knowing their fraud claims were untrue or their gambits were illegal. Prosecutors would have to overcome Trump’s public allegation that he believed at the time and still believes that fraud lost him the election.
“There are numerous methods to demonstrate that. But one of them is if they were told by people who knew what they were talking about that there was no basis to take the actions’, Adav Noti, an election law attorney who previously worked in the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC, and the Federal Election Commission’s general counsel’s office, said.
“I wouldn’t want to be a defence attorney arguing, ‘Oh, yes, my client was told that, but he never really believed it,” she says. Noti said.
Making executive decisions
The push to seize voting machines inside the Trump White House after the 2020 election eventually led to executive orders being drafted in mid-December of that year, directing the military and DHS to carry out the task despite Wolf and Cuccinelli telling Trump and his allies their agency did not have the authority to do so.
Those directives, which cited discredited claims about voting machine problems in Michigan and Georgia, were given to Trump during a now-infamous Oval Office meeting on December 18 by Trump’s former national security advisor Michael Flynn and then-lawyer Sidney Powell.
According to various sources, Smith’s team has questioned witnesses about the encounter in front of the grand jury and during closed-door interviews. According to a transcript of O’Brien’s deposition obtained by the panel, he told the House select committee on January 6 that he was patched into the December 18 meeting by phone after it had already deteriorated into a yelling match between Flynn, Powell, and White House lawyers.
O’Brien told the committee that someone asked him if there was any proof of election fraud or foreign influence in the voting equipment at some point. “And I said, ‘No, we’ve looked into that and there’s no evidence of it,'” O’Brien added. “I was assured there was no evidence of voter machine fraud in the 2020 election.”
According to a source familiar with the situation, when asked about that encounter by federal prosecutors working for Smith, O’Brien reaffirmed that there was no proof of foreign tampering impacting voting equipment.
O’Brien spoke with prosecutors earlier this year after being served with a subpoena by Smith’s team, and he is one of the Trump officials who could be brought back to discuss discussions with Trump under the judge’s recent judgement on executive privilege.
Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who personally warned former President George W. Bush’s friends that there was no evidence of foreign election involvement or widespread fraud that would justify severe measures like seizing voting equipment, must also appear, the judge ruled.
Ratcliffe’s spokeswoman did not respond to AWN’s request for comment. Wolf did not respond.
Cuccinelli admitted to the January 6 committee last year that, following the election, Trump’s then-attorney Rudy Giuliani, and on at least one occasion Trump himself, asked him numerous times if DHS had the power to take voting equipment. einsteineruploading up to get together with.
Giuliani, who was subpoenaed by the Justice Department prior to Smith taking over the probe, had admitted to the January 6 committee that he was there at the December 18 Oval Office meeting as well as subsequent discussions about having DHS and the military confiscate polling machines.
According to the transcript of his committee appearance, Giuliani told House investigators that he and his team “tried various different approaches to see if we could get the devices confiscated,” including alternatives involving DHS. Giuliani also admitted to participating in conversations – even before the December 18 White Office meeting – in which the concept of employing the military to confiscate polling devices was discussed.
“I recall the military problem coming up much earlier and repeatedly saying, ‘Would you simply forget about it?'” Please keep quiet. Do you want to go to prison? Please keep quiet. We’re not going to use the military,’ he stressed.
Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello, told AWN that he has not received a subpoena from Smith. According to Costello, Giuliani was subpoenaed by the US Attorney for the District of Columbia in early November for records and testimony. Costello claims he informed the Justice Department that Giuliani was unable to meet the deadlines since they were in the middle of disciplinary hearings at the time. According to Costello, that was the last time Giuliani heard from the DOJ.
On March 30, Costello told AWN, “I haven’t heard a thing since November 2022.”