Bernie Kerik, who advised Giuliani after Trump’s 2020 election loss, meets with Jack Smith’s team

Former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik has met with investigators from particular counsel Jack Smith’s crew, a sign after final week’s indictment of former President Donald Trump that the probe into allegations he labored to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election is ongoing.

Kerik lawyer Timothy Parlatore instructed The Related Press that his shopper sat down on Monday with officers from the federal government for about 5 hours for a dialogue centered across the efforts of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to overturn Trump’s loss.

“Bernard Kerik sat with Particular Counsel’s Workplace and instructed them the reality,” Parlatore stated. “Whether or not individuals agree with it or not, and even when among the claims have since been debunked, the unavoidable actuality is that the Giuliani crew was making a very good religion effort to analyze claims of fraud on the time.”

Giuliani, the previous main of New York Metropolis, had served as one in all Trump’s attorneys and was among the many unnamed co-conspirators talked about within the indictment unsealed final week in opposition to Trump. Giuliani has not been charged.

Kerik, whom Giuliani appointed to function police commissioner in 2000, labored for Giuliani surrounding the efforts to overturn Trump’s loss.

“They have been chasing these claims. They have been restricted by their time and sources, however in the end the concept Rudy Giuliani was deliberately pushing claims that he knew have been false will not be one thing supported by the proof,” Parlatore instructed CNN, which first reported on the assembly.

Kerik was New York’s police commissioner through the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults. Years later, he pleaded responsible to federal tax fraud and different fees and served three years in jail earlier than his launch in 2013.

Trump pardoned Kerik throughout a 2020 clemency blitz that additionally included former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Kerik was among the many visitors feting Trump after his first look in federal court docket in Florida in a case associated to his dealing with of categorized paperwork, attending the previous president’s remarks at his Bedminster, New Jersey, membership.

The assembly with Kerik, for which Smith was not current, comes as an indication that the federal government is continuous to listen to from witnesses and search testimony within the sprawling case.

Trump faces fees together with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and obstruction of Congress within the first case that seeks to carry the Republican former president criminally liable for his efforts to cling to energy after his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has denied any wrongdoing, and he claims that Smith is concentrating on him in an effort to harm his 2024 White Home marketing campaign.

An lawyer for Giuliani did not instantly reply to a message searching for remark Wednesday on the Kerik assembly. A spokesperson for Smith’s workplace declined to remark.

In July, Kerik posted to social media that he had been “subpoenaed a number of months in the past” and gave Smith “the paperwork that I might,” saying that Parlatore held any presumably privileged paperwork till waivers have been obtained from Trump.

“Nobody has flipped, nobody is promoting out Trump or Giuliani,” Kerik stated then. “That is about giving the Particular Counsel the proof that the authorized crew collected beneath” Giuliani’s supervision “within the aftermath of the 2020 election regarding voter/election fraud, and improprieties in that election.”

Parlatore, who had been a key lawyer for Trump within the Justice Division’s paperwork probe, disclosed earlier this 12 months that he was resigning from the Trump authorized crew, attributing the choice to technique disagreements with a detailed adviser to the previous president.

Trump was indicted in Smith’s paperwork probe three weeks after Parlatore’s departure. He faces 40 felony counts associated to the mishandling and unlawful retention of categorized paperwork.

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Meg Kinnard may be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.