Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Fountain Park in Fountain Hills,

Arizona. Image Credit: Gage Skidmore.© Provided by 1945

January 6 probe Looking at Donald Trump post-election fundraising: A report from back in May

says the special prosecutor looking into January 6 is concentrating on fundraising claims made

by Trump’s operation that claimed the election was stolen. 

Donald Trump Has More Problems

Among the ongoing investigations into former President Donald Trump is the special counsel’s probe

into the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and January 6.

One thread that prosecutors are reportedly focused on is that Trump and his campaign and other operations

made false claims about the election in fundraising appeals - something that may very well have been a crime. 

The Washington Post reported in mid-April that prosecutors in the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith

“sought a wide range of documents related to fundraising after the 2020 election, looking to determine

if former president Donald Trump or his advisers scammed donors by using false claims about voter fraud

to raise money.”

Now, the New York Times has published a follow-up, noting that prosecutors are “drilling down on

whether Mr. Trump and a range of political aides knew that he had lost the race but still raised money

off claims that they were fighting widespread fraud in the vote results, according to three people

familiar with the matter.” 

Trump and aides, per the report, may have violated federal wire fraud statutes, in raising

about $250 million off claims that they “needed the money to fight to reverse election fraud

even though they had been told repeatedly that there was no evidence to back up those fraud claims.”

The probe, per the Times, is looking into Save America PAC, which made many of the claims

and have been the target of subpoenas in recent weeks. The prosecutors are looking into the fundraising

appeals, which people specifically approved them, and whether those people knew that the claims

were bogus at the time. 

Prosecutors, per the report, “have developed more information” than the January 6 Committee did,

even as the committee last year raised the possibility that a crime had been committed in regards

to the fundraising appeals. 

That is not, however, the only focus of the election interference side of Smith’s investigation.

The “fake electors” in different states are also being looked at, as well as “the broader push by Mr. Trump

to block or delay congressional certification of Mr. Biden’s Electoral College victory on Jan. 6, 2021.”

This was the reason for the grand jury testimony of Vice President Mike Pence back in April,

which Trump had unsuccessfully sought to block. 

In Pence’s case, it would mark both a rare case of a former president running against his former vice president,

as well as one candidate running against a person who he has testified against before a federal grand jury.

It’s not clear exactly what Pence said before the grand jury. 

Possibly going to that claim is the news that a Trump-connected law firm hired a second firm to look

into fraud in the 2020 election, and that firm, Simpatico Software Systems, found no evidence for the claim. 

“No substantive voter fraud was uncovered in my investigations looking for it, nor was I able to confirm

any of the outside claims of voter fraud that I was asked to look at,” Ken Block, of Simpatico Systems, 

told the Washington Post. “Every fraud claim I was asked to investigate was false.”

Another firm,  Berkeley Research Group, had been hired by the campaign and also concluded

that the fraud claims were false. 

These studies could show that members of Trump’s orbit sent out solicitations for money

when they had very good reason to believe that the claims being made were false. 

Expertise and Experience

Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic,

who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review

and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia

with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.