January 6th Committee says it’s cracked Donald Trump’s dirty money trail – and it’s even uglier than we thought
The January 6th Committee has previously let it be known through the media that it’s been investigating the $250 million that Donald Trump raised by falsely claiming he won the 2020 election. Put within the context of recent public testimony confirming that Trump knew he’d actually lost the election, this is financial fraud. Now the committee says its uncovered the dirty money trail – and it may dovetail with Trump’s witness tampering.
Committee member Zoe Lofgren has announced on CNN (flagged by Mueller She Wrote) that Trump has used some of that fraudulently raised money to pay for attorneys to represent January 6th witnesses, and added that the arrangement may involve witness “coercion.” This is a big deal. It’s one thing to pay for someone else’s lawyer; it’s one of those things that probably should be illegal but isn’t. It’s another thing to use that arrangement to specifically try to coerce witnesses. For instance, you can’t hire someone a lawyer under the condition that they lie on your behalf.
This comes after the committee announced yesterday that it had uncovered multiple instances of unnamed Trump world figures attempting to coerce witnesses into remaining loyal to Trump. This in and of itself is felony witness tampering. If Trump has been engaging in this kind of tampering while also using fraudulently fundraised money to pay for the attorneys of the witnesses he’s tampering with, that’s a whole host of crimes.
