Justice Department Issues 40 Subpoenas Linked To Trump Behavior Before Jan. 6: Report
The Department of Justice has issued dozens of subpoenas in the last week to people who were familiar with the efforts by Donald Trump and his top aides to remain in power after the 2020 election and the former president’s actions before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, The New York Times reported Monday.
The DOJ’s actions, which include about 40 subpoenas as well as phone seizures from two top Trump advisers, is a dramatic uptick in the agency’s investigation, which is separate from the one involving the seizure of hundreds of classified documents Trump and his team kept at his Mar-a-Lago resort for more than 18 months after he left office.
Subpoenas have been issued to a wide range of Trump associates, including Dan Scavino, the former social media director at the White House and a longtime aide. Others have been issued to Bernard Kerik, a friend of Rudy Giuliani and a former New York City police commissioner. Two top advisers, Boris Epshteyn and Mike Roman, had their phones seized.
An attorney for Kerik said the subpoena for his client was served early last week and was extremely broad in its scope.
“Basically, give us anything and everything related to anybody that is tangentially related to the Trump campaign including a long, long laundry list,” the lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, told The Hill.
A prime focus of the investigation appears to be the plot to install slates of fake electors in swing states after Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. That plan was crafted by Giuliani and attorney John Eastman, but it tell apart when then-Vice President Mike Pence refused to go along with it.
One subpoena obtained by the Times requested information about any member of the Trump administration or legislative branch who helped plan or took part in the Jan. 6 rally preceding the attack on the Capitol. Prosecutors asked for any information on those who tried to “obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the 2020 Electoral College results.
About 20 of the subpoenas asked for information and communications about the fake elector scheme, the Times added.
The newspaper said prosecutors also appear to be homing in on a new line of investigation involving Trump’s Save America political action committee, a major fundraising arm for the former president.
The House select committee investigation the Jan. 6 attack has also been eyeing the former president’s fundraising campaigns, opening questions into whether his false claims about election fraud misled solicited donors.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
