Related Post
Washington (Trends Wide) — Federal prosecutors investigating the handling of classified documents from former President Donald Trump are pressing multiple witnesses for details about his lawyers, including whether any of them have tried to influence testimony in order to protect the former president, multiple sources tell Trends Wide. .
Investigators have focused these questions on a group of witnesses who work for Trump or are represented by attorneys provided by him. In some cases, prosecutors have asked how witnesses found their lawyers and whether they know how their fees were paid during grand jury sessions.
The line of questioning about the lawyers provided by Trump suggests prosecutors are seeking any effort by the former president to maintain control over the more than two dozen Mar-a-Lago employees and political advisers who have become central witnesses in recent years. months, and whose legal bills are paid by Trump. Investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith are exploring multiple facets of a potential obstruction case, and that could include whether the testimony was improperly influenced and coordinated within Trump’s legal network.
No one has been charged with any crime in the investigation of the federal documents. However, in recent weeks, prosecutors have moved aggressively to secure witness testimony before the grand jury and have gathered important documentary evidence that has brought them closer to making a case, according to one of the sources.
“They wanted to know who pays, how they billed,” said a person familiar with the matter, referring to questions asked by prosecutors. Prosecutors asked witnesses questions such as “Did they tell you what to say? Did they make him modify his testimony?” the source said. “Even if it was true, would anyone admit it?”
Many of the defense attorneys representing these Trump-aligned witnesses were paid by Trump’s Save America Political Action Committee.
By the end of 2022, Save America had paid $16 million for lawyers defending Trump himself and people working for him in ongoing investigations and in response to other legal matters, including the recent impeachment in Manhattan and an upcoming trial of columnist E. Jean Carroll.
The Political Action Committee, which was created days after the 2020 election and solicited millions in donations with unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, also keeps a handful of Trump employees on its payroll. Several of Trump’s closest advisers who are now also witnesses remain on his payroll and also receive hefty consulting fees through Save America.
It is not uncommon for deep-pocketed organizations to fund attorneys for their employees who need legal help responding to criminal investigations or lawsuits. Lawyers for several of Trump’s witnesses maintain that, regardless of where their funding comes from, the advice they give their clients is to protect them individually.
However, Save America’s spending has caught the interest of special counsel investigators. Prosecutors have asked similar questions about lawyers provided by Trump as part of the parallel investigation into the January 6 and 2020 election annulment effort, even subpoenaing consultants who received disbursements from Save America to track spending.
In testimony before the House committee on January 6 last year, former Trump White House adviser Cassidy Hutchinson said a Trump-backed lawyer had tried to coach her not to share information to protect Trump. She eventually switched attorneys before giving extensive testimony to the commission and criminal investigators investigating Jan. 6 and to Trump.
In comments last week following his impeachment in Manhattan, Trump made references to people in his inner circle facing questions from federal investigators, saying “people who work for me” were being harassed.
“We have this lunatic Jack Smith threatening people every day through his representatives. They threaten jail time, but talk about Trump and you’ll walk free,” he said in his speech hours after pleading not guilty to charges related to their business as presented by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for Smith’s office at the Justice Department, declined to comment.
Trends Wide previously reported that a close Trump adviser, Walt Nauta, had informed the FBI that Trump ordered boxes removed from a warehouse in Mar-a-Lago after the Justice Department sent out a subpoena for all classified files in his can. Nauta, who works as the former president’s bodyguard and even traveled with him to New York for his arrest last week, initially denied having tampered with the boxes, but was caught on surveillance footage. Nauta’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, declined to comment.
In recent months, a Mar-a-Lago employee who helped Nauta move the boxes spoke with investigators, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
Smith’s team also took aggressive steps to capture the testimony and grand jury notes of Evan Corcoran, one of Trump’s lead defense attorneys who responded to the subpoena, and they have interviewed other attorneys on the team as well.
In the past, Trump’s use of lawyers to do his bidding and keep people close to him in the fold has drawn extensive and repeated investigations by prosecutors.
In the Mueller investigation, prosecutors found that Trump’s lawyers exerted public and private pressure on a handful of top advisers, including Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen and Rick Gates, as they considered plea deals to cooperate in the investigation.
— Trends Wide’s Kristen Holmes contributed to this report.
