Special counsel Smith has subpoenaed officials in all 7 states targeted by Trump allies in 2020 election
By Zachary Cohen and Sara Murray, CNN
Special counsel Jack Smith has issued a subpoena to local officials in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, for information related to the 2020 election, a spokesperson for the county told CNN.
“Yes, we received a subpoena from the Department of Justice’s special counsel regarding the 2020 election. We have nothing further to share or provide,” said Amie Downs, the county’s communications director.
The subpoena sent to Allegheny County is the latest in a string of requests for information sent by Smith, who is now overseeing the Justice Department’s sprawling criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Smith’s team has now sent subpoenas to local and state officials in all seven of the key states — Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — targeted by former President Donald Trump Trump and his allies as part of their bid to upend Joe Biden’s legitimate victory.
Those efforts included putting forward slates of pro-Trump electors and filing baseless lawsuits. CNN reported this summer that the DOJ issued numerous subpoenas and was seeking information in all seven states where Trump’s campaign convened the false electors as part of the effort to subvert the Electoral College.
In November 2020, Trump’s campaign team fought in court to throw out over 10,000 absentee ballots in Philadelphia and Allegheny counties that were missing dates or names. Those attempts were rejected by Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, which argued in its opinion that “while constituting technical violations of the Election Code, [the mistakes] do not warrant the wholesale disenfranchisement of thousands of Pennsylvanian voters.”
Allegheny County, Pennsylvania’s second largest, helped carry President Joe Biden to a 81,000 vote victory in the state.
The recent subpoenas come as a group of election security advocates have called for Smith and other federal agencies to investigate a series of voting system breaches in multiple states carried out by allies of Trump after the 2020 election.
The group has requested a federal probe into what it calls a “multi-state conspiracy to copy voting software,” pointing to reported breaches in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith last month to oversee parts of the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the retention of classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. He will likely be tasked with making policy decisions around whether to charge Trump.
Smith and his team of 20 prosecutors are moving fast in the pair of criminal probes. Since Thanksgiving, he has brought a number of close Trump associates before a grand jury in Washington, including two former White House lawyers, three of Trump’s closest aides, and his former speechwriter Stephen Miller.
This story has been updated with additional information.
The-CNN-Wire
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CNN’s Kara Scannell, Devan Cole, Erica Orden, Geneva Sands and Jack Forrest contributed to this report
