Jack Smith Goes West, Focuses on Arizona, as He Intensifies Pursuit of Trump in January 6 Probe

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s subpoenaing of the office of the Arizona secretary of state in respect of efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election means that President Trump’s legal exposure is now nearly as wide as America. While the attentions of both Mr. Smith and District Attorney Fanni Willis have long centered on the actions of Mr. Trump and his allies in Georgia, and the special counsel has of late summoned Republican officials from Nevada, the Grand Canyon State could be the place where the heat on Mr. Trump reaches a boil.It was Fox News’s calling of Arizona for President Biden on Election Night, far earlier than other networks — NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN would wait nine days — that is seen as a turning point in Mr. Trump’s electoral fortunes. Now, it could prove decisive to his legal ones. Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and former senior adviser, Jared Kushner, in his memoir, “Breaking History,” recalled the chairman of Fox Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, telling him “the numbers are ironclad — it’s not even close.” The journalist Michael Wolff reports that when told of Mr. Trump’s opposition, the nonagenarian muttered, “F— him.” The Arizona Republic first reported that Mr. Smith’s office is pursuing information linked to two post-election lawsuits. The first was filed by Mr. Trump’s campaign and the second by a former chairwoman of the state Republican Party, Kelli Ward. Both argued that errors and fraud marred the 2020 presidential election.Mr. Trump’s suit was dismissed in the days following the 2020 election, and Mrs. Ward’s, which challenged Mr. Biden’s 10,457-vote margin of victory in the state, foundered at the district and appellate levels. She was refused a hearing by the Supreme Court, which allowed the results of the count to stand. Mrs. Ward and her husband Michael are likely of interest to Mr. Smith because of their role as two of the 84 so-called alternate electors who pledged their votes to Mr. Trump in seven states that had been called for President Biden and signed certificates that they were “duly elected electors.” Both the January 6 committee and the Department of Justice contacted the Wards with respect to their post-election activities. While those electors could make the argument that their efforts transpired under the overhang of the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of speech, Mr. Smith could be looking at United States Code 18 § 371, which criminalizes a conspiracy to “defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.”Chief Justice Taft in 1924 glossed over that statute as prohibiting any effort to “interfere with or obstruct one of its lawful governmental functions by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest. It is not,” he wrote, “necessary that the Government shall be subjected to property or pecuniary loss by the fraud, but only that its legitimate official action and purpose shall be defeated by misrepresentation or chicane.” It appears as if Mr. Trump’s contact with Arizona officials extended beyond the Wards, and reached Governor Ducey, a Republican who was then in office. The Washington Post reports that “Hail to the Chief” played on the governor’s phone just as he was certifying his state’s election results; it was the president, urging the opposite course of action. Mr. Ducey muted the call and carried on with the certification. Vice President Pence, on CBS last weekend, confirmed that Mr. Trump had deputized him to keep in contact with Mr. Ducey in the weeks after the election. Mr. Pence has said that he “put no pressure” on the governor to alter the election results. He has maintained that as vice president he lacked the constitutional authority to alter the outcome.A review by the attorney general’s office of an audit of 2020 election results at Maricopa County found “no evidence of election fraud, manipulation or the election process, or any instances of organized/coordinated fraud.” A spokesman for Mr. Trump, though, calls the election “rigged” and “stolen.” The Post adds that Mr. Ducey recently expressed surprise to an unnamed donor that he has not already been contacted by Mr. Smith’s office, given his communications with Mr. Trump. Another official who took the then-president’s call, Bradley Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, has spoken to Mr. Smith’s team. He has also testified before a Georgia grand jury. A former speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, Russell “Rusty” Bowers, this week told CNN that he is “hesitant to talk about any subpoenas” but that he has been “interviewed by the FBI,” whose agents Mr. Bowers believes have a “good grasp” of testimony he already offered to the January 6 committee relating to phone calls with Mayor Giuliani and Mr. Trump. Mr. Ducey told the Associated Press that he finally connected with Mr. Trump after the certification ceremony and that the president “has got an inquisitive mind” and “when he calls he’s always got a lot of questions, and I give him honest answers, direct feedback and my opinion when it’s necessary. And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

Jack Smith Goes West, Focuses on Arizona, as He Intensifies Pursuit of Trump in January 6 Probe

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