United States Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a press conference announcing a significant firearms trafficking enforcement action and ongoing efforts to protect communities from violent crime and gun violence at the Department of Justice in Washington, June 13, 2022.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
The Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation into the formation of alternate slates of presidential electors for Donald Trump as part of a plan to undo President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election, The New York Times reported Thursday.
That probe is particularly focused on a team of attorneys who were working for Trump on that effort, The Times reported.
The newspaper said that a federal grand jury in Washington earlier this year issued subpoenas to people connected to the plan to put forward alternate electors. They sought information about Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Giuliani’s colleague in the election cases, and another Trump lawyer, John Eastman.
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Times report from CNBC.
On the heels of Election Day in November 2020, during which Biden won the popular vote, certificates purporting to be from Trump electors were sent from seven states that Biden had won: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Those slates were never honored in the Electoral College results, which Biden won.