A trove of records Republicans released to accuse Jack Smith of overreach instead documents something far more damaging for President Donald Trump.
That's according to legal analyst Marcy Wheeler, who argued in a Thursday article on her blog emptywheel that thousands of donor checks Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) made public last month show Trump's campaign pocketing money from loyal supporters who believed election fraud claims Trump privately mocked.
Grassley unveiled 4,782 checks during Smith's September 29 testimony before the committee, then followed up Wednesday with a memo claiming Smith's team obtained data on at least 639,000 Republican donors, voters and supporters. Conservative outlets seized on both releases as proof Smith had targeted the GOP base.
Wheeler countered that much of that information is easy to find through the FEC or commercial vendors, and that the checks line up with a known thread of Smith's probe, Trump's post-election fundraising off claims he knew were false. Many of the checks, she wrote, carry notes that "tell poignant stories about the people who responded to Trump's lies."
One check, dated November 20, 2020, came from a Greenville, North Carolina, donor who sent $300 with "Release the Kracken" written in the memo line, a nod to Trump lawyer Sidney Powell. A day earlier, Powell had joined Rudy Giuliani at Republican National Committee headquarters to blame foreign communist money and Dominion voting software for Trump's loss.
On November 20, Trump got Powell on the phone from the Oval Office. As she repeated her claims, he muted the speaker, laughed, and asked the room, "This does sound crazy, doesn't it?" according to testimony former aide Hope Hicks gave the January 6 committee.
"Trump cashed the check anyway," Wheeler wrote.
The pattern repeated in December. On December 8, a Burien, Washington, donor mailed $50 with the note "Go get em Rudy!" That day, a campaign adviser Wheeler identifies as Jason Miller privately griped that the legal team's claims were "conspiracy s— beamed down from the mothership," a line later cited in Trump's federal indictment.
Wheeler also pointed to checks sent after Trump's fake electors signed bogus certificates on December 14 that urged him to fight election corruption, and others earmarked to help Republicans hold the Senate. Still others bore signs of retirees or came as postal cashier's checks, which she said suggested donors without bank accounts.
"Trump, a billionaire, was cheating people who needed the money," Wheeler wrote.