In conversations with the Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger, two former officials in the Department of Justice suggested that specific evidence revealed in the Jan. 6th committee’s investigation of Donald Trump provides a roadmap that could lead to wire fraud charges against members of Donald Trump’s campaign officials and possibly the former president too.
At issue is the preponderance of evidence that Trump and his aides were well aware that he had lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden on election night and yet sent out a flood of requests for donations maintaining the election results were fraudulent.
As the report notes, “That same day, the Trump campaign sent a fundraising email claiming that ‘President Trump will easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with only legal votes cast.’ The solicitation called on supporters to donate any dollar amount and join something called the ‘Election Defense Task Force.’ The campaign, it said, was ‘counting on members to help [Trump] fight back and secure FOUR MORE YEARS.'”
Pointing out that legal experts believe that evidence contains the “ingredients for possible federal charges against officials with the campaign and the Republican National Committee—as well as Trump himself,” Sollenberger first spoke with former U.S. attorney Barb McQuade, who said wire fraud cases are a specialty of U.S. attorney’s offices.
“If it can be shown that Trump or others sent an email asking for money for one purpose, and then used it for another, that could constitute fraud, regardless of whether it can be proved that they knew the election had not been stolen,” she explained.
Her view was bolstered by Natalie Adams, who previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, who bluntly stated, “the committee’s definitely got something.”
Speaking with the Beast, she elaborated, “It’s not whether you know something absolutely for sure. It’s if it’s ‘reasonably foreseeable’ to you that people will believe promises and statements that you either know aren’t true, or are reckless or deceptive, which you are trying to use to get something of value.”
According to Adams, there is a wire fraud conspiracy case to be made — which could sweep up the former president as a co-conspirator.
“With conspiracy, you don’t necessarily have to commit an overt act. And jury instructions don’t require proof of a formal agreement, because criminal actors avoid doing that,” she explained. “But if people work together and profit from it, it’s helpful to show who had the access and opportunity to review those communications, and who would be likely to know by virtue of their job what is ‘reasonably foreseeable’ to occur, who are charged with vetting the truth of statements, and so on.”
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Image: Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour