Trump’s Jan. 6 Target Letter: Are Any Associates in Jack Smith’s Crosshairs?

Silence, rather than disclosure, has been the most startling fallout among some of the people most closely associated with Donald Trump's bombshell news earlier this week that Special Counsel Jack Smith is likely to indict the former president in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The Messenger reached out to attorneys for nine Trump associates tied to the former president’s efforts to stay in the White House, following his electoral defeat.

Only two agreed to speak on the record. Another declined to comment, and others maintained radio silence. This story will be updated as they respond, but the calm before the storm appears to be universal.

No other Trump allies have told any news outlet that the special counsel’s office sent them a target letter, a procedural move from the Justice Department that informs recipients that prosecutors may charge them with crimes. 

‘In a Streamlined Fashion’

Some legal analysts have speculated that the special counsel’s office may pursue a narrow indictment of Trump, in order to avoid the pitfalls of prosecuting a former president and frontrunner for the Republican 2024 White House nomination during peak campaign season.

“I suspect that the special counsel wants to get this case tried before the election and realizes the only hope is to charge it in a streamlined fashion in terms of both the statutes and evidence utilized and the defendants included,” former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers told The Messenger. 

“A sprawling indictment covering all possible strands of the conspiracy and all possible defendants (dozens of fake electors are charged) would take a couple of years to get to trial,” she added.

Appointed as special counsel on Nov. 18, 2022, Smith has had a narrow window of time to conduct and complete his investigation quickly enough to avoid running into the Justice Department’s customs and policies discouraging actions close to an election. It remains unclear whether Smith is crafting his prosecution plan with that objective, but no Trump associate to date has advertised a likely future appearance on a sprawling, multi-defendant indictment.

Of the three Trump associates to have publicly denied receiving a target letter, two are the president’s former attorneys. One emphatic denial came from counsel for John Eastman, the author of the so-called “coup memo,” a six-point plan to block the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. 

"Our client has received no target letter, and we don’t expect one since raising concerns about illegality in the conduct of an election is not now and has never been sanctionable," Eastman’s attorney Charles Burnham told The Messenger. 

The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection found that Eastman’s actions went far beyond raising concerns about the election, referring him to Smith’s office for potential prosecution for obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States. 

The bipartisan committee had been echoing the findings of a federal judge in California, who ruled that Trump and Eastman “more likely than not” committed two felonies, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States. 

“Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history,” U.S. District Judge David O. Carter wrote in a ruling more than a year ago. “Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower—it was a coup in search of a legal theory. The plan spurred violent attacks on the seat of our nation’s government, led to the deaths of several law enforcement officers, and deepened public distrust in our political process.”

Judge Carter issued his March 2022 order in the context of a civil lawsuit, in which Eastman tried to protect his emails from the committee under attorney-client privilege. The judge overruled the embattled California attorney’s claims under the crime-fraud exception, but those findings did not come with any criminal consequence. Eastman has been facing disciplinary proceedings before the State Bar of California, whose trial counsel has been seeking his disbarment over his efforts to overturn Trump’s defeat.

‘We Don’t Expect One’

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is also fighting for his law license in California, also denied receiving a target letter, according to CNN.

In late June, Giuliani sat down with Smith’s prosecutors over the course of two consecutive mid-week mornings, causing some close to Trump to question whether he would strike a deal with the Special Counsel’s office. In an interview with The Messenger, Giuliani’s attorney Robert Costello adamantly denied that his client had a cooperation deal with prosecutors in the works, and his legal team subsequently reiterated to CNN that he did not expect to be charged.

Stop the Steal leader Ali Alexander, a key organizer of the pro-Trump rallies that preceded the riot, testified before a federal grand jury a little more than a year ago, and he said at the time that he was not considered a target.

On Thursday, his attorney Paul Kamenar reiterated that position.

“No, Ali Alexander has not gotten a target letter, and we don’t expect one,” Kamenar told The Messenger, adding that he also does not expect his client to receive a subpoena.

Other attorneys for Trump associates have kept quiet — even ones who previously disclosed federal investigations in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In late 2021, pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell’s attorneys told The Washington Post that the Department of Justice had been investigating her fundraising entity Defending the Republic, which was registered as a 501(c)4, sometimes known as a dark money group. 

In the wake of the 2020 election, Powell used that entity to solicit donations for her so-called “Kraken” litigation, a suite of four lawsuits seeking to topple Biden’s victories in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia. Those efforts failed, earning Powell and her co-counsel a sanctions order referring her and her co-counsel for disciplinary proceedings at their respective bar associations.

Whether prosecution will follow remains unknown: The criminal investigation that Powell’s legal team confirmed a little more than a year ago predated Smith’s appointment as special prosecutor.

Reached for comment on that probe’s status, attorney Howard Kleinhendler — who’s also under fire for his role in election-related litigation — declined to comment.  

Attorneys for other former Trump associates — ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows, then-Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark, GOP political operative Roger Stone, right-wing broadcaster Alex Jones, and strategist Steve Bannon — did not respond for the record to requests for comment.

‘The Oldest Fraud Case in History’

Some legal analysts caution that the absence of public confirmation of other target letters doesn’t mean that Trump will be the sole defendant in the sprawling special counsel’s probe of Jan. 6. 

“One possibility is that other people who got the target letter will be like most people who got a target letter — and not put it on social media,” noted Harry Sandick, a defense attorney at Patterson Belknap who previously served as a prosecutor for the Southern District of New York. 

Asked about Trump’s now-established pattern of announcing his imminent indictments, a source familiar with his legal team’s thinking told The Messenger: “You seize power over your own destiny where you can find it.” 

“At this point he sees power over his own destiny by being able to tell people what's next, good or bad,” the source added.  

Other prospective targets may avail themselves of their constitutional rights to remain silent, and some legal analysts believe that any Jan. 6-related charges against Trump may relate to conduct focused on the former president.

Some reports suggest prosecutors have been eyeing Trump’s fundraising to the tune of $250 million on bogus election fraud claims, allegedly misleading donors over where the money was going in what the Jan. 6 Committee labeled the “Big Rip-Off.” 

Citing those reports, Sandick said: “That's the oldest fraud case in history, right? It's not particularly tied to the sort of autocoup or challenge to democracy, but it's still a serious crime.”

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Trump’s target letter cited three counts: obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and a Reconstruction-era civil rights statute. Two of these statutes involve conspiracies.

“By definition,” conspiracies involve more than one person, but those other alleged co-conspirators do not need to be charged, former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner told The Messenger. 

Darren Samuelsohn contributed to this report.