The prospect of former President Donald Trump potentially facing federal charges of wire fraud is “no small potatoes,” according to legal analyst Glenn Kirschner.
The former federal prosecutor said during the Friday episode of his Justice Matters podcast that a new development in “the ever-expanding criminal investigations” of Trump could land the ex-president in hot water. Trump, the leading 2024 GOP presidential candidate, faces 34 felony counts of business fraud in New York and could face additional criminal charges in Georgia and at the federal level.
During Kirschner’s podcast, he discussed a Friday report from The Washington Post that cited eight anonymous sources while claiming Special Counsel Jack Smith had issued a series of subpoenas that indicate he is investigating whether the Trump campaign committed wire fraud by fundraising off of false claims that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” by Democrats and President Joe Biden.
Smith’s investigation has been centered on Trump’s actions surrounding the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and issues related to his post-presidency possession of classified documents. Kirschner said that the new report indicated Smith was “going after [Trump] hard” and was “not at all shy about expanding his criminal investigation.” The subpoenas were reportedly sent to Trump advisers and ex-campaign aides, with some having already testified before a grand jury in Washington, D.C.
Scott Olson
“What are the chances that Donald Trump scammed donors by using false claims about voter fraud to raise money?” Kirschner said. “What are the chances Donald Trump made false representations over email to swindle people out of their cash? I mean, that’s a crime that kind of proves itself when it comes to Donald Trump.”
“And friends, the federal crime of wire fraud ain’t no small potatoes,” he continued. “If you send emails with false information about rigged elections, in order to dupe people out of their money, you have committed the 20-year federal offense of wire fraud. Like I say, no small potatoes.”
While Kirschner maintained that wire fraud “looks like a readily provable charge” against Trump, he also said that he was “of two minds” about the news, with his patience “wearing thin” due to a continued lack of federal charges for the former president.
“We have seen federal investigation, after federal investigation, after federal investigation,” said Kirschner. “What we haven’t seen is a single, solitary federal indictment of Donald Trump or any of his criminal associates.”
“It feels like too much investigating, and not enough indicting and arresting and trying and convicting and sentencing Donald Trump for his crimes,” he added. “At some point, the Department of Justice must take that first overt law enforcement action.”
Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges in New York and has said that he considers all of the investigations against him to be part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” against him.
The former president has also denied any wrongdoing in the face of lawsuits from New York Attorney General Letitia James and former columnist E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of raping her in the 1990s.
Steven Cheung, spokesperson for Trump, previously told Newsweek that Kirschner was “a notorious trafficker of wild conspiracy theories and dubious legal analysis” and had “been shunned by the legal community at large.”
Newsweek has reached out via email to the office of Trump for comment.
