Former Trump DHS official Ken Cuccinelli testifying in grand jury investigation around 2020 election interference
By Katelyn Polantz, Kaitlan Collins and Casey Gannon, CNN
Former Trump-era Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli is testifying before a federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Thursday.
Cuccinelli headed into the grand jury area just before 10 a.m. ET at the federal courthouse, where prosecutors looking at efforts to undermine the 2020 election as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation are also gathered.
“Yep,” Cuccinelli told CNN when asked if was there to testify to the grand jury. When asked about the topic, he said, “Don’t know.”
Cuccinelli was a notable figure in Donald Trump’s attempts to use his administration to pursue unfounded election fraud claims after the 2020 election and was a frequent presence around Trump’s Oval Office.
He previously testified to the House select committee that investigated the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
His appearance at the federal courthouse on Thursday suggests that prosecutors are continuing to look into high-level conversations within the Trump administration after the election, and may build upon other testimony of top White House officials who have appeared before the grand jury.
The House select committee reported that Cuccinelli fielded an inquiry from Trump and his top advisers about the executive branch seizing voting machines after the election, but Cuccinelli said his department didn’t have that authority.
Yet Cuccinelli had also messaged then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in November 2020 about Dominion voting machines, which Trump’s advisers falsely believed were part of a fraud conspiracy in the election, according to the committee’s final report.
Trump also considered Cuccinelli for a special appointment to seek out election fraud on behalf of the White House after the election, according to a Senate Judiciary Committee report.
Trump told a group of officials “something to the effect of, ‘I think Ken Cuccinelli would be a great special counsel,'” former Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue said, according to the Senate committee’s report.
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CNN’s Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.
