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Arrest footage of Trump co-defendant provides glimpse into Jack Smith probe=
By JOSH GERSTEIN and KYLE CHENEY
01/04/2024 07:52 PM EST
Special counsel Jack Smithโs probe of Donald Trumpโs election subversion has mostly played out in stuffy conference rooms and secret grand jury chambers, but last February, it nearly turned violent.
During a tense confrontation with FBI agents who were trying to serve a subpoena, Harrison Floyd โ a 2020 Trump campaign aide โ considered grabbing one of the agentsโ guns, Floyd told local police officers who arrived at his door shortly afterward. His exchange with the local police was captured in body camera footage obtained by POLITICO through a public records request.
The footage shows the aftermath of a heated encounter between Floyd and two FBI agents dispatched by Smith. In the video, a winded, bare-chested Floyd complains to police in Rockville, Maryland, that he has just been accosted by a pair of men who pursued him into his apartment building. One flashed a gun, prompting Floyd โ a Marine Corps veteran and mixed martial arts fighter who saw combat in the Iraq War โ to consider wrestling it away, Floyd says in the video.
โIf he reached up, I probably could have tried to stop the muzzle, but he would have definitely threw my hand,โ Floyd tells the officers, who were responding to a 911 call he placed about armed men barging into his building. โBut the other one was right next to me. So, if I went for that gun, and he pulled a gun, now Iโm fighting two guys with guns, thatโs not good. So, I backed up and went away. โฆ I couldโve been killed really fucking easily, if I wasnโt smart.โ
The confrontation itself was not captured on the video, and itโs not clear why it apparently escalated into a heated altercation. What is clear is that, on Feb. 23, 2023, the FBI agents were attempting to serve Floyd with a grand jury subpoena as part of Smithโs federal investigation into Trumpโs efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
And the video reveals details of the previously secret subpoena that offer new insights into the timing, direction and staffing of Smithโs probe.
Smith, who obtained a federal indictment of Trump in August, has not charged Floyd in that case. But Floyd is facing criminal charges alongside Trump and other allies in the separate probe in Georgia over election interference. And Floyd was also arrested that day in Rockville and later charged in federal court with assaulting an officer for allegedly barreling into one of the FBI agents.
An attorney for Floyd, Chris Kachouroff, said the two men who approached his client never displayed their credentials, so Floyd could not be sure who they were or what they were doing. Audio recorded by one of the FBI agents confirms that, the lawyer said.
A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment on the episode.
A secret subpoena revealed
Grand jury subpoenas are not typically public. But in the bodycam video, one of the Rockville officers who answered Floydโs 911 call can be seen holding up the subpoena and leafing through each page, with the text visible.
The subpoena demanded all records of Floydโs contacts with Trump, the Trump administration and lawyers working on Trumpโs behalf. More notably, it asked for all documents โrelating to any planned or actual contactโ with two Georgia election workers who became targets of conspiracy theories fomented by Trump and one of his top 2020 lawyers, Rudy Giuliani.
In the video, Smithโs name is clearly visible on the cover letter of the subpoena, as is a request to Floyd to keep the demand confidential.
The new details underscore that Smith has pursued evidence related to the harassment of the two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who were falsely accused by Trump, Giuliani and others of manipulating ballots in 2020. Smith mentioned them in his Aug. 1, 2023, indictment of Trump, but the details of his probe into the matter have largely remained elusive. (In a separate proceeding, Freeman and Moss recently won a $148 million defamation verdict against Giuliani.)
The subpoena to Floyd also asked for any communications between Floyd and two other Trump allies: Stephen Lee and Trevian Kutti. Both Lee and Kutti, like Floyd, are charged alongside Trump in the Georgia case, which alleges that the campaign of harassment against Freeman and Moss was part of a sprawling conspiracy to overturn Joe Bidenโs victory in Georgia. Floyd, Lee, Kutti and Trump have all pleaded not guilty.
The subpoena from Smithโs team was issued on Feb. 21, 2023, and gave Floyd a March 9 deadline to provide the documents. It did not require him to testify before the grand jury, and itโs unclear whether he ultimately complied with the demands.
The subpoena and its accompanying letter were signed by assistant special counsel Jonathan Haray, a veteran federal prosecutor who once worked closely with Washington, D.C.โs U.S. attorney, Matthew Graves, who now leads the massive Justice Department probe of the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The presence on Smithโs staff of Haray, who once served as the deputy chief of the fraud and public corruption section at the U.S. attorneyโs office in Washington, has not been previously reported. Haray joined law firm DLA Piper in 2014 after a job at the Securities and Exchange Commission. He appears to have returned to government service about a year ago, around the time Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith to the special counsel post in November 2022.
A spokesperson for Smithโs office declined to confirm or detail Harayโs role or the roles of the FBI personnel who approached Floyd.