The Missouri prosecutor overseeing an investigation into the 2020 vote in Fulton County, Georgia, has taken half in conferences since final fall with attorneys tasked by President Donald Trump to reinvestigate his loss to Joe Biden.
Thomas Albus, whom Trump appointed final yr as U.S. legal professional for Missouri’s Japanese District, has had a number of conferences arrange with high administration attorneys to debate election integrity.
At these conferences was Ed Martin, a Justice Division lawyer who until recently led a group investigating what the president has described because the division’s “weaponization” in opposition to him and his allies, based on a supply aware of the conferences who spoke on situation of anonymity for worry of retribution.
White Home lawyer Kurt Olsen, who has been tasked with reinvestigating the 2020 election, additionally was directed to affix not less than one of many conferences, based on the supply. Each Martin and Olsen worked on behalf of Trump to attempt to overturn the 2020 election outcomes, and a federal court sanctioned Olsen for making false claims in regards to the reliability of voting machines in Arizona.
The conferences reveal new particulars in regards to the size of the preparations for, and folks concerned in, the January FBI raid on Fulton County, which election and authorized experts told ProPublica was a big escalation in Trump’s breaking of democratic norms.
U.S. Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi picked Albus and has granted him special authority to deal with election-related circumstances nationwide, regardless that his earlier work as a federal prosecutor didn’t contain election regulation or election-related circumstances. The conferences with Martin, Olsen and different attorneys for the Justice Division have been described by the supply as being about “election integrity,” a time period the Trump administration has used to explain investigations into its false claims that elections are rigged.
Martin, Olsen, Albus and others declined to reply questions in regards to the conferences and different detailed questions from ProPublica. The White Home and the Justice Division additionally didn’t reply to questions.
The conferences got here at a very essential time.
Martin’s efforts to acquire election supplies from Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold, had hit a wall. In August, he sent a letter demanding {that a} Fulton County decide permit him to entry tens of 1000’s of absentee ballots for “an investigation into election integrity right here on the Division of Justice,” however he had reportedly received no reply.
Martin defined to Steve Bannon on a podcast that aired across the time of the conferences that though the White Home had given Olsen the official mandate to reinvestigate the 2020 election, “inside DOJ, myself and a few others have been working additionally on the identical matter” — together with getting the Fulton County ballots. However Martin described progress as a “problem.”
Bannon, who served as Trump’s chief strategist in his first time period, requested why Martin didn’t simply “get some U.S. marshals to go down and seize” the ballots.
Martin urged it was simpler stated than performed, however agreed: “Look, we’ve acquired to get” the ballots.
Earlier than lengthy, Albus and Olsen have been interviewing witnesses for his or her case. Kevin Moncla, a conservative researcher, instructed ProPublica that he spoke to Albus and Olsen a few occasions, each collectively and individually, across the flip of the yr. He recognized himself as Witness 7 in the affidavit that persuaded a decide to log off on the raid, and the affidavit mentions a 263-page report he authored that activists consider might have justified the raid, ProPublica has reported. Moncla has a long history of working with Olsen, dating back to an attempt by Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, to overturn her 2022 loss.
Only a few weeks after these interviews, in late January, Albus was listed as the federal government legal professional on the search warrant that approved the seizure of roughly 700 packing containers of election materials in Georgia, far outdoors of Albus’ standard jurisdiction.
Former U.S. attorneys from each events stated it was uncommon for a federal prosecutor from one area to tackle circumstances in different states or be granted the nationwide authority Albus has been given.
Underneath Trump, senior roles throughout the White Home, DOJ and FBI have more and more been stuffed by a small, interconnected group of Missouri attorneys with longstanding ties to 1 one other.
One other high federal official within the conferences was Jesus Osete, the principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights. Earlier than becoming a member of the Justice Division, Osete labored within the Missouri legal professional common’s workplace, the place he represented the state in not less than 5 lawsuits in opposition to the Biden administration concerning vaccine mandates, immigration and different insurance policies. Osete didn’t reply to requests for remark or to an in depth checklist of questions.
When the FBI raided Fulton County’s election middle, Andrew Bailey, one other lawyer from the identical political circles, was in charge. Earlier than becoming a member of the FBI as deputy director, he had used his place as Missouri’s legal professional common to pursue high-profile cases in opposition to distinguished Democrats and stated he supported all efforts to investigate Biden, his household and his administration.
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to reply detailed questions on Bailey.
Final yr, Roger Keller, a veteran federal prosecutor from Albus’ workplace, was introduced in to assist prosecute New York Lawyer Normal Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud in Virginia after the unique profession prosecutors on the case have been changed by political appointees. After a decide dismissed the case, two federal grand juries declined to indict James once more, and Keller returned to Missouri.
Trump’s solicitor common, D. John Sauer, beforehand served as Missouri’s solicitor common underneath state attorneys common Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt. He and Schmitt signed Missouri’s amicus temporary supporting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election outcomes. Sauer later represented Trump in his presidential-immunity case, efficiently arguing earlier than the Supreme Courtroom that Trump was entitled to broad immunity from prosecution.
Albus’ connection to the opposite Missouri attorneys goes again a long time. In contrast to a number of the others, although, he has by no means held elected workplace or had a excessive public profile, nor has he waged culture-war campaigns like Bailey or Martin. As an alternative, he spent most of his profession as a federal prosecutor and as a decide in a Missouri state circuit court docket.
Emails present Albus exchanging temporary messages with Martin in 2007, when Albus was an assistant U.S. legal professional in St. Louis and Martin was chief of workers to then-Gov. Matt Blunt. The emails have been a part of information from the Blunt administration that grew to become public after being launched underneath Missouri’s Sunshine Regulation.
Within the electronic mail alternate, Albus put in a great phrase for a St. Louis lawyer who was a finalist for an appellate court docket judgeship, and Blunt in the end chosen that candidate.
Albus served as first assistant to Schmitt from early 2019 till Albus was appointed by Gov. Mike Parson to fill a circuit court docket decide emptiness in early 2020. Schmitt, now a U.S. senator, praised Albus as “one of many best prosecutors I’ve ever met” when endorsing his nomination for U.S. legal professional in December.
Legal professionals who appeared in Albus’ court docket rated him as properly ready, skilled and attentive, based on Missouri judicial efficiency evaluations. They stated he adopted the proof, utilized the regulation appropriately and gave clear causes for his rulings.
Albus got here underneath extra crucial scrutiny after Trump named him interim U.S. legal professional final summer time. A lot of that focus centered on a fraud case he inherited when he took workplace. Prosecutors alleged that builders in St. Louis falsely claimed to be utilizing minority- and women-owned subcontractors to qualify for metropolis tax breaks, conduct the Justice Division has traditionally handled as wire fraud.
One of many defendants was represented by lawyer Brad Bondi, the brother of Pam Bondi.
The builders’ lawyers argued that even when the federal government’s claims have been true, they have been legally irrelevant as a result of the Trump administration had taken the place that tax breaks primarily based on race or gender have been illegal. Albus accepted these arguments and dropped the case. As a part of the decision, Albus personally hand-delivered to Metropolis Corridor a examine of about $1 million from one of many builders’ firms as restitution. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he intervened “to make it clear” his workplace needed to drop prices and hand-delivered the examine “to verify they acquired it.”
In a letter to Pam Bondi and Deputy Lawyer Normal Todd Blanche, Congressional Democrats stated the dismissal of the St. Louis case and different circumstances during which the Justice Division intervened on behalf of Brad Bondi’s shoppers raised “significant broader ethical concerns.” Within the St. Louis case, and in a separate matter involving one other Brad Bondi shopper whose prices have been dropped, a Justice Division spokesperson stated Pam Bondi’s relationship together with her brother had “no bearing on the outcome.”
A spokesperson for the builders stated their attorneys communicated solely with the U.S. legal professional’s workplace in St. Louis in regards to the case and had no direct contact with Pam Bondi. He stated the dismissal mirrored “a recognition that this case ought to by no means have been introduced within the first place.” Brad Bondi didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Weeks later, across the time of Albus’ conferences about election integrity, he posed with Martin in Martin’s workplace, flanked by a framed picture of Trump and a replica of “A Alternative, Not an Echo,” the influential conservative manifesto by Phyllis Schlafly arguing that Republican voters have been being manipulated by get together elites and the media.
Martin posted the picture on X with the caption, “Good morning, America. How are ya’?”
