Exclusive: Pennsylvania, New Mexico secretaries of state interviewed as part of special counsel’s 2020 election interference probe
Former President Donald Trump is seen here in Arlington
By Zachary Cohen, CNN
(CNN) — Federal prosecutors have interviewed the secretaries of state for both Pennsylvania and New Mexico in recent months as part of the ongoing investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to two sources familiar with the probe.
The interviews, which have not been previously reported, indicate that special counsel Jack Smith is focused on actions taken by former President Donald Trump and his allies in seven key battleground states as they sought to upend Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt met with prosecutors working with Smith in March, one of the sources said.
Schmidt, a Republican, was asked about issues he encountered while serving as Philadelphia City Commissioner, including how misinformation about widespread voter fraud impacted him and other election officials at the time, the source told CNN. Schmidt was appointed to be secretary of the commonwealth earlier this year.
New Mexico’s top election official, Maggie Toulouse Oliver, also met with federal prosecutors in recent months “to discuss matters related to the 2020 election,” according to the second source.
Smith’s team has sent subpoenas to local and state officials in all seven of the key states – Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – that were targeted by Trump and his allies and where Trump’s campaign convened the false electors as part of the effort to subvert the Electoral College.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger also spoke to federal prosecutors as part of the criminal probe.
Benson said in an interview on CNN that prosecutors were focused, in part, on the impact of misinformation on election workers and the “threats that emerged from that from various sources.”
Other officials from those states also have been interviewed by federal investigators as part of the special counsel probe, including Rusty Bowers, a former top GOP official in Arizona.
Smith’s sprawling investigations has focused on multiple alleged election-stealing efforts, including pressure campaigns on local officials, a scheme to appoint fake electors and pushing then-Vice President Mike Pence to block Biden’s victory.
Investigators have asked dozens of witnesses about the chaotic final weeks of the Trump administration, including whether Trump was explicitly told that he lost the election.
Smith and his team have zeroed in on a chaotic Oval Office meeting during the final days of Trump’s presidency, during which the former president considered some of the most desperate and far-fetched proposals to keep him in power over objections from his White House counsel, CNN previously reported. Participants in the meeting floated ideas like naming Sidney Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations, invoking martial law, and seizing voting machines.
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CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.
