CNN Exclusive:
National security officials tell special counsel Trump was repeatedly warned he did not have the authority to seize voting machines
Washington
CNN
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Former top national security officials have told prosecutors and testified to a federal grand jury that they repeatedly told former President Donald Trump and his allies that the government didn’t have the authority to seize voting machines after the 2020 election, CNN has learned.
Ken Cuccinelli, the former second in command at the Department of Homeland Security, was asked about discussions inside the administration around DHS seizing voting machines when he appeared before the grand jury earlier this year, according to three people familiar with the proceedings. Cuccinelli testified that he “made clear at all times” that DHS did not have the authority to take such a step, one of the sources said.
Cuccinelli’s former boss at DHS, ex-acting secretary Chad Wolf, met with Justice prosecutors and FBI officials earlier this year after receiving a grand jury subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith’s team, according to Wolf’s lawyer John Coale. Wolf told prosecutors that after the 2020 election he was asked by White House officials if DHS had legal authority to seize voting machines and each time he said no, Coale told CNN.
Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, in a closed-door interview with federal prosecutors earlier this year, also recounted conversations about seizing voting machines after the 2020 election, including during a heated Oval Office meeting that Trump participated in, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Details about the secret grand jury testimony and closed-door interviews, neither of which have been previously reported, illustrate how special counsel Smith and his prosecutors are looking at the various ways Trump tried to overturn his electoral loss despite some of his top officials advising him against the ideas.
Now some of those same officials, including Wolf, Cuccinelli and O’Brien, as well as others who have so far refused to testify, may have to return to the grand jury in Washington, DC, to provide additional testimony after a series of pivotal court rulings that were revealed in recent weeks rejected Trump’s claims of executive privilege.
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10:58 AM EDT, Thu April 6, 2023
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/05/politics/election-voting-machines-trump-national-security/index.html