Wire Fraud Charges Possible Over Trump’s Scam PAC

Greg Sargent writes for the Washington Post:

As the Jan. 6 House select committee documented, Trump and his allies raised as much as $250 million with countless texts and emails that were full of lies about the 2020 election. Some missives, which were sent out in the run up to Jan. 6, 2021, called for donations to an “Official Election Defense Fund.” But that fund didn’t exist, the committee demonstrated. Much of the money flowed to the newly-created Save America PAC, not “election related litigation.”

Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney, points out that a Justice Department investigation into this scheme would likely build on what the Jan. 6 committee learned. Federal prosecutors have likely collected much of the same documentation. If so, McQuade says, it might implicate something like wire fraud, which requires use of electronic communications. “Proving a fraud can sometimes be a fairly easy task,” McQuade told me.

Read the full article.

Huge: DOJ has issued new subpoenas related to Trump raising millions of dollars to “stop the steal.” That’s one of his most disgusting scams: The moment when the Big Lie became the Big Grift. It could implicate wire fraud, @BarbMcQuade tells me:https://t.co/wdHzRRVAso

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) September 13, 2022