Donald J. Prosecutors in Atlanta investigating election interference by Trump and his associates recently contacted two consulting firms hired by the Trump campaign in 2020 to investigate numerous claims of vote fraud, but found no evidence of significant fraud, the people said. With knowledge of investigation.
Despite the findings of two companies, Simpatico Software Systems and Berkeley Research Group, Mr. To this day, Trump continues to make false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, but no credible evidence has emerged to support that or any of his other election conspiracies. The theories were rejected.
Interested in companies and their work in Georgia and other battleground states, Mr. Trump and his allies could be used by lawyers to undermine what they say are legitimate grievances about the election. The companies have previously been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors. A recent development regarding lawyers in Atlanta reported Previously The Washington Post.
Fanny D. Willis, Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney, Mr. Weighing an array of possible charges against Trump, including whether he violated state laws with post-election phone calls to state officials, Jan. 2, inclusive. 2021, a phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, in which Mr. Trump said he needed to “find” 11,780 votes, or one vote more than he lost the state. Ms. Willis is overseeing several of the Trump team’s post-election moves, including a plan to create bogus voters that was promised to Mr. Trump despite President Biden’s victory in Georgia. More than half of voters have taken immunity deals.
A special grand jury that heard testimony in the case for nearly seven months indicted more than a dozen people, and its forerunner confirmed in an interview with The New York Times in February that Mr. Trump was one of them. Ms. Willis must seek any indictment from a regular grand jury and has indicated she will do so in the first half of August.
Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor and law professor at the University of Alabama, said Ms. Willis may be interested in the companies’ failure to detect significant fraud because it is Mr. It would help establish that Trump acted with criminal intent.
Ms. Vance said that if Ms. Willis were to press charges, she would have to “prove that Trump lost the election and that in essence he didn’t ask them for legitimate votes and told them to steal the votes.”
Ms. Willis’ office and both companies declined to comment.
During the proceedings of the House January 6th Committee last year, it became clear that there was not enough fraud to change the outcome of the vote, as many Trump aides and associates said.
Alex Cannon, one of the campaign’s lawyers, was Sympatico’s point of contact, Mr. While thanking Trump’s son Eric, he said it was “unbelievable” that the allegations of fraud are coming in 2020. Jan. 6, 2021, Attack on the Capitol.
Asked if Eric Trump “expressed any dismay or concern about the decision that you shared with him,” Mr. Mr. Cannon added, “I think he’s stunned. I think that’s a fair characterization. Most senior campaign lawyers are “not surprised” that most of the claims are baseless.
On December 14, 2020, when the mock voters were convened in Atlanta, Mr. Trump had already lost three different numbers of votes and the state’s Republican Party leadership certified the decision.
Independently of the Georgia investigation, Mr. Federal prosecutors conducting criminal investigations into Trump blamed Mr. Trump for losing the race. Trump and his aides are also paying attention to whether they know. Trump supporters could potentially run afoul of federal wire fraud laws.
Ken Black, owner of Rhode Island-based Simpatico Software, previously said he had received a subpoena for the documents from federal prosecutors. Immediately after the election, Trump campaign counsel asked for an evaluation of specific allegations of election fraud in six states: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Mr. Black said his agency denied all allegations and “found no fraud substantial enough to alter the election result.” His company was paid $735,000.
Soon after hiring Simpatico, the Trump campaign hired Berkeley Research Group, a California-based consulting firm that focuses on corporate finance and investigations. Mr. Supervised the political activity. A federal grand jury has obtained evidence that Berkeley was hired at the behest of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
In late April, The New York Times reported that a federal grand jury had raised questions about whether Mr Trump had been informed of the results of the Berkeley Research investigation, which found no evidence of widespread fraud. The company was paid about $600,000 for its work, records show.
