Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith wants to look at the recently revealed tapes of Sen. Ted Cruz (R) outlining a proposal for overturning the 2020 presidential election with a Fox News host, reported The Daily Beast on Thursday.
The tapes of Cruz were first revealed by Abby Grossberg, a former producer at Fox who sued the network, alleging a toxic, misogynistic work environment and a scheme to coerce her into giving misleading deposition testimony in the lawsuit against the network by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion's suit was settled for $787.5 million, but Grossberg's litigation is ongoing.
"Grossberg’s attorney, Gerry Filippatos, told CNN on Wednesday that federal investigators reached out several weeks ago, after they began publicizing the existence of the tapes," reported A.J. McDougall. "'We’re in the process of negotiating a targeted subpoena for Abby’s electronic data, so they can have what they want,' he said. He added that she remains committed to cooperating fully with the federal probe."
"Jack Smith, the special counsel looking into Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, is also reportedly interested in the tapes, according to an interview Filippatos gave to MSNBC on Tuesday," the report continued.
On the tapes, Cruz laid out to Fox host Maria Bartiromo his idea of establishing a "commission" that would investigate former President Donald Trump's baseless claims of election fraud, and give Congress a pretext to reject certifying the electors, a process that would have let Republicans elect Trump in a vote of state House delegations.
"I think that the country deserves to have a credible assessment of these claims and what the evidence shows and the mechanism to try to force that is denying certification on the sixth," Cruz said in the recordings.