"But, Muh Freedom Of Speech!"

This isn’t over yet. When you raise millions based on a fraudulent claim, you’ve committed a crime. And, you just might have to give those millions back…Special counsel still scrutinizing finances of Trump’s PAC https://t.co/GP6HRVawyQ via @politico

— Frank Figliuzzi (@FrankFigliuzzi1) August 8, 2023

"ELECTION INTERFERENCE!"

In a closed-door interview on Monday with Bernard Kerik, investigators asked multiple questions about the Save America PAC’s enormous fundraising haul in the weeks between Election Day and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to Kerik’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, who was present for the interview and shared details with POLITICO.

“It’s a laser focus from Election Day to Jan. 6,” Parlatore said.

The special counsel has long been thought to be scrutinizing whether Trump or his PAC violated federal laws by raising money off claims of voter fraud they knew were false. Last week’s indictment of Trump, on charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, did not include any allegations of financial crime.

But the interview with Kerik, a longtime ally of Rudy Giuliani, shows that Smith’s team is still gathering information about how Trump and his allies handled the post-election period, and that investigators’ interest in Trump-related finances continues. Kerik, who served as New York City police commissioner when Giuliani was mayor, helped Giuliani in his efforts to contest the results of the election in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6.

Let's shorten that phrase to:  "Wire fraud."

 

Wire fraud? Delicious

— Jen Taub (@jentaub) August 8, 2023

And get in the way-back machine to June, 2022.

[The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection] says the Trump campaign took $250 million in donations from supporters that it said would go to an election defense fund to pay for legal fees to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. But the fund was never actually created, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., one of the committee members, said Monday in the panel's second public hearing.

Instead, the money went to the Save America political action committee, she said, and the money went from there to several pro-Trump organizations which are headed by former officials close to Donald Trump's inner circle.

"Not only was there the Big Lie," Lofgren said, referring to Trump's false allegations of election fraud, "there was the Big Rip-Off."

Nobody's saying we're there yet.  But there's a great potential to be there.  Put it this way:  Trump probably thought this grift was too good to be true.  It may turn out he was right.