(WASHINGTON) — As former President Donald Trump makes his first court appearance in Florida to face federal charges related to his handling of classified documents, special counsel Jack Smith’s separate investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election appears to be quietly pressing on inside a grand jury room in Washington, D.C.
Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald and Nevada GOP committee member Jim DeGraffenreid were spotted by a network pool reporter Tuesday afternoon inside the Prettyman Federal Courthouse, where the Jan. 6 grand jury meets.
Both men were part of the failed 2020 effort to put forward slates of fake electors who would attempt to cast electoral college votes for Trump on Jan. 6, despite Trump’s loss in the state to Joe Biden.
The House Jan. 6 committee said the “fake elector” plan, set up in multiple swing states, assembled “groups of individuals in key battleground states and got them to call themselves electors, created phony certificates associated with these fake electors, and then transmitted these certificates to Washington, and to the Congress, to be counted during the joint session of Congress on January 6th.”
McDonald appeared before the House Jan. 6 committee but invoked his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions.
Trump has dismissed the investigations into Jan. 6 and blasted the Jan. 6 panel as partisan.
The Nevada Independent reported in June of last year that the FBI seized McDonald’s phone as part of its investigation in the fake elector scheme, well before the appointment of Smith as special counsel last November.
In May, eight of the so-called “fake electors” in Georgia accepted immunity in the Fulton County district attorney’s separate probe into the matter, according to their lawyer.
Smith was appointed in November by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving the presidency, as well as efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
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