Special counsel subpoenas Georgia’s Raffensperger for Trump communications
Ryan King
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Special counsel Jack Smith reportedly subpoenaed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for all communications with former President Donald Trump and an extensive list of his allies.
Echoing similar subpoenas doled out to local officials in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin over recent weeks, Smith is demanding all forms of correspondence “to, from, or involving” Trump and the list of his allies between June 1, 2020, and Jan. 20, 2021, the Associated Press reported. The subpoena was reportedly dated Dec. 9 and received on Monday.
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Raffensperger has become a flashpoint for investigations zeroing in on Trump’s efforts to thwart the 2020 election. During a January 2021 call to Raffensperger, Trump said, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.” That call sparked a Fulton County investigation and was a point of interest for the Jan. 6 committee investigation.
In addition to correspondence with Trump, Smith is also after any communications with lawyers John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn, Rudy Giuliani, L. Lin Wood, and Sidney Powell, as well as campaign officials Bill Stepien and Justin Clark, per the Associated Press.
With the subpoena of Raffensperger, Smith has gone after at least five of the six battleground states in the 2020 election.
Smith was tasked with spearheading the Justice Department’s investigations into Trump’s activity surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and stashing of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. He was appointed to the role by Attorney General Merrick Garland last month.
Widely expected to weigh criminal charges against the former president, Smith has been moving at a rapid tempo, demanding grand jury testimony from two former White House lawyers, three of Trump’s closest aides, and a former speechwriter. Recently, under his stewardship, prosecutors asked a judge to hold Trump in contempt for defying a subpoena pertaining to the classified document saga, but a judge opted not to do so last week.
Smith’s team is comprised of a staff roughly twice the size of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, including two teams — one to investigate the Capitol riot and coinciding efforts to overturn the 2020 election and another to examine the Mar-a-Lago document ordeal, CNN reported.
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Trump has denied wrongdoing on both fronts, decrying the special counsel appointment as “unfair to the country” and bashing Smith as “nothing less than a hit man for Obama.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to Raffensperger’s office for comment.