insurrection. quote, one part of the four-page legal document asks for recipients to reveal if anyone other than themselves paying for legal representation. and if so, to provide a copy of the retention agreement for that legal work. the subpoena shows the justice department is interested in other trump entities besides the save america pac, which the post reported was a subject of inquiry by investigators. it seeks all documents and communications related to other trump-affiliated groups, including the make america great again pac, and the trump make america great again committee. recipients were also asked for documents related to the genesis of an election defense fund, an entity that trump officials created to raise money from grassroots donors after the election. if it feels at all to you like doj is finally getting to this and sharpening its january 6th investigation, your hunch is
in just a moment, we ll be joined by maryland democratic chairman jamie raskin who serves on the committee. right now we want the take a closer look at another key item the committee highlighted yesterday, namely fundraising email likes these which the committee says brought in $250 million, a quarter billion in small dollar donations. the first one we could find went out early on the morning of november 5th, which was just two days after the election. in it, there is an image of the former president and vice president under the words official election defense fund. so right off the bat, you receive this thing in the mail, you re meant to think it has some sort of special authorization or stamp of arovell. the text that follows certainly lends the impression that not only is it official, it s an actual thing, already in existence like an agency, ready to spring into action. quoting now from this mailing, i ve activated the official election defense fund, and i need every patriot, i
national committee. the address is given as 725 fifth avenue here in manhattan, and wouldn t you know, that is trump tower. however, members of the select committee who have spoken about this are not alleging that this big chunk of cash simply went straight to donald trump. what they are saying is very little went for what the fundraising emails claim were for, quoting from the email now, to defend the integrity of our election. instead, according to the committee, most of the money went to a political action committee the former president set up shortly after the election, not to election-related legal action. the select committee discovered that the save america pac made millions of dollars of contributions to pro-trump organizations, including $1 million to trump chief of staff mark meadows charitable foundation. one million to the america first policy institute, a conservative organization which employees several former trump administration officials. $204,857 to the trump hotel
collection. and over $5 million to event strategies inc., the company that ran president trump s january 6th rally on the ellipse. so according to the committee, most of the money raised by these emails did not go to protecting the integrity of the election. the emails kept going out. they kept asking for money. they went out as the trump campaign went on to lose 61 court battles. and crucially they kept going out long after there was any chance at all for the money to have any impact at all, even if it had all gone to challenging the outcome, which the committee says it did not. and even though this all came as a bit of a surprise at the hearings yesterday, the questionable nature of the fundraising campaign was known at the time. listen to this ad from republicans for the rule of law, which began airing on december 11th. beware of a new scam from donald trump targeting 2020 voters, requesting money to be used for an official election defense fund. do not be fooled. now when ask