Special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of efforts by Donald Trump and others to subvert the 2020 election remains ongoing — with at least one interview this week that focused on fundraising and spending by Trump’s political action committee.
Meanwhile, the grand jury that indicted Trump last week was spotted meeting Tuesday in the federal courthouse in Washington.
In a closed-door interview on Monday with Bernard Kerik, investigators asked multiple questions about the Save America PAC’s enormous fundraising haul in the weeks between Election Day and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to Kerik’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, who was present for the interview and shared details with POLITICO.
“It’s a laser focus from Election Day to Jan. 6,” Parlatore said.
The special counsel has long been thought to be scrutinizing whether Trump or his PAC violated federal laws by raising money off claims of voter fraud they knew were false. Last week’s indictment of Trump, on charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, did not include any allegations of financial crime.
But the interview with Kerik, a longtime ally of Rudy Giuliani, shows that Smith’s team is still gathering information about how Trump and his allies handled the post-election period, and that investigators’ interest in Trump-related finances continues. Kerik, who served as New York City police commissioner when Giuliani was mayor, helped Giuliani in his efforts to contest the results of the election in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6.