Cegavske complies with Justice subpoena in Trump probe

Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske replied to a subpoena from a Washington, D.C.-based FBI agent as part of a Department of Justice probe into former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Cegavske, whose term is up in January, was subpoenaed Nov. 22 requesting communications between June 1, 2020, and Jan. 20, 2021, “to, from, or involving Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.” or “any records or documents that record, summarize, transcribe, annotate or reflect any such communications.”

The Department of Justice is investigating Trump’s attempts to overthrow the 2020 election, including in battleground states where he argued there was election fraud. Clark County’s Election Department also received a subpoena requesting the same information and is gathering those records.

The subpoena also specifies communications from 19 individuals involved with the Trump campaign and requests that Cegavske send all materials by Dec. 9.

The secretary of state’s office replied to the subpoena Tuesday, sending two pages of records regarding communications with Trump’s campaign, according to documents provided to the Review-Journal.

The record that the secretary of state’s office provided is one Oct. 20, 2020, email between Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald and Mark Wlashchin, the deputy secretary of state for elections. The email was for a Google Calendar invite for a “SOS Zoom Meeting” involving Wlaschin, McDonald, Jesse Binnall, Jesse Law and Shana Weir.

Binnall and Weir were Trump’s Nevada “stop the steal” lawyers who filed a lawsuit trying to overturn the 2020 election results in Nevada.

Only one email

Jennifer Russell, the public information officer for the secretary of state’s office, said in a email that the communication between the Nevada Republican Party and the Republican National Committee was the only record the office found during the time frame in question. The office decided to include the email “out of an abundance of caution,” Russell said.

During the Zoom meeting mentioned in the email, officials discussed one of the lawsuits, Russell said. She is not sure how long that meeting lasted.

Alida Benson, the executive director for the Nevada Republican Party, said McDonald received an invite from Wlaschin in regard to a letter that the party’s attorney sent requesting that the party be allowed to install video cameras in Clark County’s Election Department so anyone could monitor the ballot counting process. COVID-19 restrictions in Clark County facilities kept observers too far away to engage in meaningful observation, the party argued. A couple of days after the meeting, Cegavske declined the request, Benson said.

McDonald was instrumental in efforts to challenge the 2020 election in Nevada, leading the plan to have six party-nominated Trump electors sign illegitimate election certificates declaring Trump the winner in Nevada and then submitting them to be counted in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. Law, the chairman of the Clark County Republican Party, also signed the faux election certificates.

Special counsel investigating

Attorney General Merrick Garland named Jack Smith on Nov. 18 as special counsel to oversee the Justice Department investigation into the presence of classified documents at Trump’s Florida estate and key aspects of a separate probe involving the violent storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump’s efforts to remain in power.

Cegavske, who served two terms as secretary of state and will be replaced by Democratic Secretary of State-elect Cisco Aguilar, was one of the only Republicans in the state to refute the allegations of a stolen election, leading her own party to censure her.

McDonald and other members of the Nevada Republican Party submitted four boxes that they claimed contained evidence of election fraud. Cegavske’s staff spent more than 125 hours reviewing and investigating those documents, and she determined there was not “evidentiary support for the contention that the 2020 general election was plagued by widespread voter fraud.”

Lawsuits that Trump’s campaign filed in Nevada also failed, with the Nevada Supreme Court unanimously ruling there was no credible evidence of election fraud in Nevada.

Trump continues to allege there is fraud in Nevada. During the state’s nationally watched midterms in November, he said on his social media platform that Clark County’s voting system was corrupt and rigged against former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a Republican who ran against Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and lost by 53,142 votes in Clark County. Trump endorsed both Laxalt for Senate and Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo for governor. Lombardo won his race.

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on Twitter. The Associated Press contributed to this report.