Attorneys who aided in Donald Trump’s efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election have reportedly come under increasing scrutiny from the office of Special counsel Jack Smith.
Prosecutors from Smith’s team have interviewed Trump’s one-time personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani for about eight hours; issued inquiries centered on Sidney Powell, a pro-Trump lawyer who spread election misinformation; and questioned Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, about Giuliani, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Smith has been tasked with leading Justice Department inquiries into Trump’s treatment of classified documents and his role inspiring the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The classified documents probe produced a 37-count indictment against Trump in Florida last month.
Last year, a federal judge in California said Trump’s effort to reverse his presidential election loss likely amounted to a crime.
Raffensperger, a Republican, has said Trump urged him to “find” the votes to reverse President Biden’s victory over Trump in Georgia in the 2020 election.
Smith’s team met with Raffensperger in Atlanta on Wednesday, according to Raffensperger’s office. A spokesman for Raffensperger, Robert Sinners, said he could not confirm specific details about the content of the interview.
A spokesman for Giuliani, Ted Goodman, did not immediately reply to a request for comment for this story. But Goodman told CNN last month that “the appearance was entirely voluntary and conducted in a professional manner.”
Requests to Powell were not immediately returned Monday.
Giuliani spoke voluntarily with Smith’s team under what is known as a proffer agreement, The Journal reported. Such agreements — also called “queen for a day” deals — allow witnesses to provide information to prosecutors in exchange for some level of legal immunity.
Norman Eisen, a Brookings Institution fellow who worked as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment, said defense lawyers do not typically allow their clients to enter proffer agreements unless they intend to fully cooperate with the case in pursuit of immunity or a plea deal.
The interviews by Smith’s team with key figures in Trump’s push to reverse the election could signal that the investigation is approaching its conclusion.
“All signs are that he’s getting to the end,” Eisen said of Smith. “This was an attempted coup — not using tanks and guns and soldiers, but using statutes and cases and lawyers. So, it’s logical that those lawyers would be the focus.”
