Despite bringing a major federal indictment against Donald Trump just last week, special counsel Jack Smith is apparently not done targeting the former president.
Politico reported that Smith’s investigation into the alleged attempts that Trump and some of his allies made to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election aren’t quite finished yet. The media outlet said the special counsel’s team had at least one interview during this week that was focused on the spending and fundraising efforts being undertaken by the political action committee that works on Trump’s behalf.
At the same time, the same grand jury that returned the indictment against Trump met on Tuesday at the federal courthouse in the nation’s capital.
On Monday, federal investigators questioned Bernard Kerik behind closed doors about the huge haul of money the Save America PAC brought in during the weeks between the presidential election day in 2020 and the Capitol riot on January 6 of 2021.
That was according to Tim Parlatore, the attorney representing Kerik, who himself attended the interview and talked to Politico about it. He said:
“It’s a laser focus from Election Day to January 6.”
Rumors have swirled for a while that Smith has been scrutinizing if the Save America PAC or Trump himself violated any federal laws by allegedly fundraising on the backs of voter fraud claims that they knew weren’t true.
The four-count federal indictment that was handed down against Trump over his involvement in trying to overturn the 2020 election results didn’t include any financial crime allegations.
The fact that the special counsel’s team interviewed Kerik this week, though, shows that they are still trying to gather information regarding how the time between the election and January 6, 2021, was handled by Trump and other people around him. It also shows that they are particularly interested in the finances surrounding Trump and his PAC.
Kerik is considered to be a long-time ally of Rudy Giuliani. When Giuliani was mayor of New York City, Kerik was police commissioner for the city.
Kerik also aided Giuliani in trying to contest the 2020 presidential election results in the weeks before the January 6 Capitol riot.
While Trump was the only person who was formally charged as part of the federal indictment regarding 2020 election interference, six other co-conspirators were mentioned in the document. The fact that the investigation is still ongoing – and some associates of those people are being called in for interviews – suggests that further charges could be handed down in the near future, Politico reported.
The New York Times has reported in the past that Giuliani and his allies urged Trump to use funds from the Save America PAC to pay Giuliani for legal work he was doing for the former president after he left office.
Politico reported that Kerik was questioned about Boris Ephshteyn, one of the lawyers who worked for Trump following the 2020 election who is now a member of his campaign team as the in-house counsel.
Parlatore also said that questions were asked regarding the deputy campaign manager for Trump’s 2020 re-election bid, Justin Clark.
