Subpoena city
Earlier this week it was reported that DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith had subpoenaed Rudy Giuliani along with a number of people connected with a Trump Super PAC. The interesting part was that these subpoenas had actually been sent late last year, shortly after Smith took the job. As I’m often fond of pointing out, the media and the public usually only learn about these kinds of things well after the fact, and even then it’s usually only part of the story.
It turns out that particular truism has struck yet again. According to the Washington Post, it wasn’t just Rudy and a Super PAC who received subpoenas from the Special Counsel. People connected with numerous Trump-related Super PACs were also subpoenaed late last year. Notably, some of these subpoenas centered around the alleged use of Super PAC money to pay for legal representation of some of Donald Trump’s associates.
This suggests that Smith and the DOJ really are not only following the money, but looking to break up the ‘legal protection racket’ that Donald Trump appears to have been using in order to keep some folks around him quiet. This points to a particularly aggressive approach on Smith’s part.
WaPo also says that these subpoenas are attempting to establish whether Trump and his people knew that their public claims about voting machines and such were false at the time they made them. This tells me that the Special Counsel is looking to bust Trump and his people for having fundraised on what they knew was a lie, which is of course fraud.
Say what you will about the timeframe, but it’s becoming more clear by the day that Jack Smith is looking to bust Trump and a whole bunch of his people on a wide swath of crimes. It’s also worth emphasizing again that even with two shoes having dropped in this particular storyline this week, it’s likely that we still only have a fraction of the story. And keep in mind that these subpoenas happened more than a month ago, meaning deadlines have likely come and gone – so the subpoena targets are either cooperating against Trump by now or they’re quietly being held in contempt of court. Each time more comes out about Smith’s probe, it gets even uglier for Donald Trump and Trump world. Expect that pattern to continue in the coming days and weeks.
