A top 2020 campaign official for former President Donald Trump is reportedly cooperating with prosecutors investigating his effort to overturn his election loss as special counsel Jack Smith’s team zeroes in on Rudy Giuliani’s role in the scheme.
Mike Roman, who led election day operations for Trump, has agreed to answer questions from the special counsel’s prosecutors investigating Trump’s plan to stay in power and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Roman had previously invoked the Fifth Amendment when he testified before a grand jury about his role in Trump’s post-election effort and especially the plot to appoint fake slates of pro-Trump electors from states that President Biden won
Now, the campaign aide has agreed to cooperate and tell prosecutors what he knows in hopes of avoiding being charged for his own role in the scheme, CNN reported late Thursday.
Prosecutors have taken a keen interest in Giuliani’s leading role in the fake electors plot, along with other senior Trump lawyers like Sydney Powell and John Eastman.
Giuliani has also answered questions from Smith’s prosecutors in a similar meeting as he reportedly scrambles to avoid being charged in the case.
But Smith “most definitely” plans to hit the ex-mayor with some charges even if he can avoid some counts by cooperating, The Independent reported.
Giuliani was mostly asked by prosecutors about Trump’s role in directing the fake electors scheme as he sought to figure out a way to stay in office despite losing to Biden, the paper said.
That suggests that Smith is weighing whether to give Giuliani some measure of immunity from prosecution in exchange for what would be blockbuster testimony against his ex-boss.
The investigation into the election scheme and Jan. 6 is separate from the probe into the hundreds of classified documents that Trump took to his Mar-a-Lago home after leaving office and refused to return to the feds.
Trump was indicted on 37 counts including mishandling classified documents and obstructing the investigation, along with longtime body man Walt Nauta.
Smith is considering hitting Trump with up to 45 charges in several federal jurisdictions in the documents probe, The Independent said, including some based on multiple incriminating tapes of Trump discussing the documents.
Trump also faces a Georgia state investigation into his election interference plot in that state. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has signaled that she plans to charge Trump or others in August.
