Prosecutors in the office of the special counsel Jack Smith are continuing their investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. They recently questioned witness Bernard B. Kerik about fund-raising efforts by Mr. Trump’s political action committee.
Mr. Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner, voluntarily met with prosecutors for a proffer session on Monday. He played a key role in assisting Rudolph W. Giuliani, another former mayor of New York, with investigating claims of fraud in the election results.
The questions posed to Mr. Kerik focused on Save America PAC, Mr. Trump’s main post-election fund-raising entity. Prosecutors have been investigating whether the PAC falsely collected millions of dollars based on claims of widespread fraud and misused the funds for other purposes instead of investigating those claims.
According to Mr. Kerik’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, Mr. Kerik stated that Mr. Giuliani’s team did not receive any money from Save America PAC, even though they were heavily involved in investigating the alleged fraud.
Mr. Kerik also suggested that if Save America PAC had provided funding, it could have facilitated a more thorough examination of the fraud claims.
Proffer sessions are based on agreements between prosecutors and individuals under investigation. The individuals provide valuable information to avoid potential charges or testifying before a grand jury. In return, prosecutors promise not to use their statements against them in future criminal proceedings, unless it is determined that they were lying.
In June, Mr. Giuliani had his own proffer session during which he was asked about a significant aspect of Mr. Smith’s investigation: a plan by Mr. Trump and his allies to create fake pro-Trump elector slates in key swing states won by President Biden. Prosecutors focused on the involvement of John Eastman, another lawyer who advised Mr. Trump on staying in office after his defeat.
Both Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Eastman were named as co-conspirators in the indictment filed against Mr. Trump this month. The indictment accused the former president of three overlapping conspiracies related to defrauding the United States, disrupting the election certification process on Jan. 6, 2021, and depriving people of their voting rights.
Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, has scheduled a hearing for Friday morning to discuss the implementation of a protective order governing how Mr. Trump and his lawyers handle the large amount of evidence they will receive from the government.
Prosecutors have requested that Judge Chutkan prevent Mr. Trump from publicly releasing any of the evidence to avoid him trying the case in the media before it goes to court.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers have asked for a narrower order, asserting that the government’s proposed restrictions infringe on his First Amendment rights to discuss the case while running for public office.
On Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump’s lawyers filed court documents requesting that the 25 days between his arraignment on Aug. 3 and the first status conference on Aug. 28 be excluded from the speedy trial clock.
Under the law, defendants are required to go to trial within 70 days of being charged, unless the judge deducts time from that period. Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the complexity of the case warranted such deductions, considering the need to evaluate the government’s evidence, prepare a defense, and participate in pretrial proceedings.
The defense’s primary legal strategy in both the election interference case and the case involving classified documents has been to delay the trials as much as possible. If the trials can be postponed until after the 2024 election and Mr. Trump wins, he could potentially seek a self-pardon or have the charges dismissed by his attorney general.
During Mr. Kerik’s interview, prosecutors also asked about Sidney Powell, a Texas-based lawyer and co-conspirator listed in Mr. Trump’s indictment. Ms. Powell filed a series of lawsuits after the election claiming that voting machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems had been used to flip votes from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden.
Prosecutors inquired about the factual basis for Ms. Powell’s lawsuits, and Mr. Kerik stated that he was unaware of any. They also questioned Mr. Kerik about Phil Waldron, a former Army colonel who acted as a liaison between Ms. Powell and Mr. Giuliani’s team. Investigators wanted to know how seriously Mr. Kerik and others on the team evaluated Mr. Waldron’s claims of mathematical irregularities in the vote results in key swing states as evidence of fraud.