Special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into Donald Trump and his associates' efforts to overturn the 2020 election is expanding a month after indicting the former president for his alleged conspiracy to remain in office, CNN reports. Multiple sources familiar with the probe told the outlet that questions asked of two recent witnesses signal the prosecutor is now shifting focus to funds raised off unfounded claims of voter fraud that were allegedly used to support attempts to breach voting equipment in states Joe Biden won. The questions in both interviews, CNN reports, center on former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell's role in the alleged scheme.
Invoices obtained by CNN show that Powell's non-profit, Defending the Republic — which aimed to fund the Trump team's post-election legal disputes of election results based on the notion that they had evidence of widespread voter fraud — employed forensics firms that ultimately accessed voting equipment in Biden-won swing states: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan. Powell's organization, according to documents CNN reviewed and witness testimony in the House select committee's probe of Jan. 6, contributed millions of dollars to the push to access voting tech as part of an effort to retroactively support the claims Trump's lawyers presented in failed lawsuits challenging the results.
Though widely identified as the third of Trump's unindicted co-conspirators in the federal election indictment, the new focus of the probe raises the possibility that Powell and others could still encounter legal jeopardy.
Powell is already facing criminal charges in Georgia related to her alleged assistance in coordinating and funding a multi-state scheme to illegally access voting systems after the election in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis sprawling racketeering indictment last month. The former Trump attorney pleaded not guilty.
