How Donald Trump's 'willful blindness' fundraising off of the Big Lie could constitute yet another crime

This Monday, the House committee investigating the Capitol riot said that former President Donald Trump fundraised off his false claims of mass voter fraud in the 2020 election.

“The Trump campaign knew that these claims of voter fraud were false yet they continued to barrage small-dollar donors with emails encouraging them to donate to something called the ‘Official Election Defense Fund,’” senior investigative counsel Amanda Wick said. “The select committee discovered no such fund existed.”

During a segment on MSNBC this Monday, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said the revelation shows that the committee "in investigating one crime may have stumbled on another."

"...if [Trump] is using a lie as a false pretense to collect money from people, that could also be a charge of wire fraud, so, in that way, we may have seen an expansion of the potential liability here," McQuade said.

McQuade went on to say that what she saw during today's House hearing was "the essence of willful blindness" -- namely due to former Attorney General William Barr's testimony that Trump didn't show any interest "in what the actual facts were."

McQuade went on to say that what she saw during today's House hearing was "the essence of willful blindness" -- namely due to former Attorney General William Barr's testimony that Trump didn't show any interest "in what the actual facts were."

06 13 2022 14 10 35youtu.be