Grand jury investigating January 6 now looking at Trump’s PAC

The Washington DC grand jury empanelled to investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol and attempts to overturn the 2020 election by former president Donald Trump and his allies, has broadened its efforts by asking for information about Mr Trump’s political action committee, Save America.

According to multiple reports, the grand jury has issued subpoenas for “documents, records and testimony from potential witnesses” pertaining to Save America in an effort to understand “understand the timeline of Save America's formation, the organization's fundraising activities, and how money is both received and spent by the Trump-aligned PAC”.

Mr Trump filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to establish the committee began soliciting donations shortly after election day in 2020 and has continued doing so on an almost-daily basis since then, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in the nearly two years since the 2020 election.

The fundraising solicitations often come with apocalyptic predictions of doom and disaster for the ex-president if supporters don’t continue to fill the PAC’s coffers.

One email sent to potential donors after the FBI search of Mr Trump’s home in August urged supporters to “rush in a donation IMMEDIATELY to publicly stand with me against this NEVERENDING WITCH HUNT”.

The Trump committee’s fundraising has also come under scrutiny from the House January 6 select committee.

During a June hearing, a committee investigator pointed out that Mr Trump’s committee had solicited donations for an “Official Election Defence Fund” that did not exist.

Representative Zoe Lofgren, a select committee member, said at the time that the Justice Department should look into whether Mr Trump broke the law when he “intentionally misled his donors, asked them to donate to a fund that didn’t exist and used the money raised for something other than what he said”.