By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith has withdrawn a subpoena seeking records about fundraising by the political action committee Save America, which is controlled by former President Donald Trump, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The withdrawal earlier this month indicates Smith is scaling back at least part of his inquiry into the political fundraising work that fed and benefited from unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen, the newspaper reported.
Save America is a Trump group that is separate from his campaign but played a major role raising money to support him as the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination. Trump, a Republican, founded Save America days after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The special counsel’s office declined to comment. Save America could not immediately be reached for comment.
Trump pleaded not guilty on Aug. 3 to charges brought by Smith in federal court in Washington that he conspired to defraud the United States by preventing Congress from certifying Biden’s 2020 election victory over him and to deprive voters of their right to a fair election.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in a failed bid to prevent congressional certification of Biden’s victory.
The federal indictment of Trump did not specifically refer to Save America.
Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor, told the Washington Post that the withdrawn subpoena “may simply reflect a pragmatic decision to narrow the scope of the investigation.”
The former president also faces three other indictments – over alleged hush money payments to a porn star in New York, over his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House, and over his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. He has pleaded not guilty in all the cases.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Richard Chang)
