Prosecutors Ask Witnesses If Trump Admitted Losing 2020 Race
Prosecutors Ask Witnesses If Trump Admitted Losing 2020 Race
According to four people who have been briefed on the matter, federal prosecutors investigating former President Donald J. Trump‘s attempts to overturn the 2020 election have questioned multiple witnesses in recent weeks, including Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, about whether Mr. Trump had privately acknowledged in the days after the 2020 election that he had lost. One of the questions asked of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law was whether Mr. Trump had privately acknowledged that he had lost.
The line of questioning gives the impression that the prosecutors are trying to establish whether or not Mr. Trump was acting with corrupt intent as he sought to remain in power — essentially that his efforts were knowingly based on a lie — evidence that could significantly strengthen any case they might decide to bring against him.
According to a person who has been briefed on the case, Mr. Kushner testified in front of a grand jury at the federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., last month. During his testimony, Mr. Kushner is said to have maintained that it was his sense that Mr. Trump sincerely believed the election was stolen.
The questioning of Mr. Kushner demonstrates that the federal investigation being led by the special counsel Jack Smith is continuing to pierce the layers closest to Mr. Trump. At the same time, prosecutors are debating whether or not to bring charges against the former president in connection with the efforts to promote baseless assertions of widespread voter fraud and block or delay congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College victory.
An email asking for comment was sent to both Mr. Kushner’s and Mr. Trump’s spokespeople, but neither one of them responded.
However, additional people in Mr. Trump’s inner circle who interacted with him in the weeks following the 2020 election and who have potentially more damaging stories of Mr. Trump’s behaviour have lately been questioned by the office of the special counsel. These individuals have been questioned in relation to the investigation into potential obstruction of justice.
One of them is Alyssa Farah Gryphon, who will serve as the director of communications for the White House in the days following the election in 2020. She repeated a statement she gave to a House select committee on January 6 of last year, saying that Mr. Trump had stated to her in the days after the election, “Can you believe I lost to Joe Biden?” She told investigators last spring that she had heard Mr. Trump say this to her.
Ms. Gryphon stated in front of the House committee, “At that very instant, I believe he realised he lost.”
Charles J. Cooper, who represents Ms. Gryphon, chose not to comment on the matter.
According to persons who are acquainted with some of the hearing, the House committee has asked still more witnesses whether or not advisers told Mr. Trump that he had lost. This is another topic that has been investigated by the committee. In addition, witnesses have been questioned regarding statements made by the former president during the summer months leading up to Election Day and even as far back as the spring of 2020, which was when the coronavirus outbreak first started.
If the prosecutors decide to press charges against Mr. Trump in this matter, the answer to the question of what Mr. Trump’s intentions were could be crucial in strengthening their position. It is unknown what charges they may be contemplating at this time;
however, a House select committee that is controlled by Democrats submitted a number of prospective charges to the Justice Department last year. These possibilities included encouraging an uprising, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstructing an act of Congress. It is unknown what charges they may be considering at this time.
Mr. Trump is already facing federal charges brought by Mr. Smith in connection with sensitive information taken from the White House, and he is under indictment in New York on accusations connected to payments of hush money to a pornographic film actress prior to the 2016 election. Mr. Smith is the individual who took the confidential documents from the White House.
A district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, in the state of Georgia, has started an investigation into Mr. Trump and his associates’ attempts to overturn his loss in the state of Georgia in the 2020 election.
The establishment of Mr. Trump’s mindset to demonstrate that he understood that what he was doing was wrong would, according to legal experts and former federal prosecutors, provide prosecutors in Mr. Smith’s investigation that is focused on the election with a more compelling case to present in front of a jury if they choose to seek charges against Mr. Trump.
It is not necessary for the prosecution to have concrete evidence of a defendant stating, “I am aware that I am breaking the law.” However, the strength of their claims is increased when they are able to offer evidence demonstrating that the defendant is aware that there is no factual or legal foundation for a claim, but the defendant continues to make the claim anyway.
Daniel Zelenko, a partner at the firm Crowell & Moring and a former federal prosecutor, stated that being able to reference a defendant’s own statements can go a long way towards helping prosecutors convince a jury that the defendant should be convicted. Zelenko was a federal prosecutor for a period of time.
“Words are incredibly powerful in white-collar cases because in a lot of them you’re not going to hear from a defendant, as they are seldom going to take the stand,” he added. “This is because defendants in white-collar cases are more likely to plead guilty than to testify against themselves.” Because of this, those remarks now carry a greater weight and will have more of an impact as a result of having been presented to the jury.
According to Andrew Goldstein, the partner at the law firm Cooley who is leading the inquiry into whether or not Mr. Trump obstructed justice during the investigation into Russia, there were other benefits to having Mr. Trump’s own words that were crucial in such a potentially serious case.
Mr. Goldstein stated that “just as important,” if the Department of Justice possesses this kind of material, it might assist justify to the public why it would be necessary to file charges in this case.
It has been previously acknowledged by a few of Mr. Trump’s advisers and associates who spoke with him in the days immediately following the election that Mr. Trump signalled that he was aware that he had lost the election. In his testimony before a select committee of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark A.
Milley, stated that in a meeting that took place in the Oval Office in late November or early December of 2020, President Trump admitted that he had lost the election. Milley’s testimony may be seen here.
Mr. Milley stated that the statement was made in reference to President Biden. “He says words to the effect of: Yeah, we lost, we need to let that issue go to the next guy,” Mr. Milley said, adding “Meaning President Biden.”
“And the entire gist of the conversation was — and it lasted — that meeting lasted maybe an hour or something like that — very rational,” General Milley added. “And the meeting lasted maybe an hour or something like that.” “He kept a level head. There wasn’t anything; despite the fact that we were discussing a very weighty topic, everything seemed perfectly normal to me. Despite the gravity of the topic we were discussing, there wasn’t anything. On the other hand, I do recall him saying that.”
However, according to General Milley, in following encounters Donald Trump talked more and more about how the election was rigged against him.
“It wasn’t there in the first session, but then all of a sudden it starts appearing,” General Milley remarked. “This is very strange.”
It was revealed on Tuesday night that a text exchange from early December 2020 between several of Mr. Trump’s lawyers showed that Mr. Trump was searching for stories of how the election was stolen at that time, even though the reports had not been proven at the time. One of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, Boris Epshteyn, was the one who communicated the information in the text to other members of the legal team, including Rudolph W. Giuliani. According to Mr. Epshteyn, he was conveying a message that came directly from Mr. Trump’s communications aide Jason Miller.
