🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
At least two of the fake Republican electors who were installed by former President Donald Trump to falsely declare him the winner of the 2020 election have testified before the federal grand jury investigating the former president's alleged attempt to overturn the last presidential election, according to CNN.
The exclusive report, which cites sources familiar with the situation, is the latest sign of activity with Special Counsel Jack Smith's probe into Trump's actions leading up to the siege of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and could signal that decisions on charges are nearing.
It's also a sign that Smith "continues to move forward on all fronts" of his investigations against Trump, said former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, as the Department of Justice also moves steadily along in its case against the former president regarding his handling of classified documents.
Federal prosecutors have been investigating multiple avenues in which Trump and his allies allegedly attempted to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden, including the elaborate scheme to subvert the Electoral College process at the hands of fake electors who were pledged to Trump in seven key swing states that the former president lost.
According to CNN, at least two of those electors in question agreed to testify to the grand jury in Trump's case on a limited immunity deal. The grand jury has also heard from "at least half a dozen witnesses" in the past two weeks, read the report, and at least one other witness spoke to investigators outside of the grand jury on the agreement that they would not be prosecuted.
Kirschner, who spoke about the update in Trump's January 6 case on his Justice Matters podcast Friday, said that Smith's agreement with the fake electors is a "tactical decision" that it is more imperative to "lock in their testimony that very likely will incriminate Donald Trump" than worry about "nobodies who committed crimes."
"What are the odds that Republican operatives and officials in all seven battleground states simultaneously and coincidentally came up with the fake elector scheme?" Kirschner posed.
"Come on, man. This was a Washington-conceived, Washington-implemented, Washington-controlled criminal operation from the top down."
"That's a tactical decision that I certainly entrust Jack Smith to make," the legal analyst continued, speaking about the limited immunity deals. "I'm sure he's making the right decisions, the best decisions based on the available evidence, and he has decided that it's better to grant some of these fake electors immunity and use their testimony against Trump and company than try to prosecute them all."
"[Smith]'s going to wring the truth out of them upfront, and he's going to use that truth to make sure he brings the best, most complete, most compelling case he can bring against Donald Trump and his legal team," Kirschner added.
Newsweek emailed Trump's campaign on Friday for comment on CNN's report.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung has dismissed Kirschner as "a notorious trafficker of wild conspiracy theories and dubious legal analysis" in previous comments to Newsweek, alleging that he "has been shunned by the legal community at large."
The fake elector issue has also been a major part of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' investigation of the former president's alleged attempts to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results. Willis' office previously reached an immunity deal with eight of the 16 fake Republican electors in her state in exchange for their grand jury testimonies, and is expected to wrap up decisions on charges by summer's end.
Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, has maintained that the legal investigations against him are part of a "witch hunt" intended to upset his reelection campaign.
About the writer
Kaitlin Lewis is a Newsweek reporter on the Night Team based in Boston, Massachusetts. Her focus is reporting on national ... Read more