Several Trump World figures straddle both events under investigation by a Justice Department special counsel, providing prosecutors with what experts say is a potent opportunity to advance both investigations, The Hill reports. Three in particular are key figures at the intersection of the potential prosecutions of the former president into mishandling of classified records and the effort to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Alex Cannon, Christina Bobb and Kash Patel played different roles in the two sagas, but each has been sought by the Justice Department in the documents dispute and has also been called in by the special House committee, now disbanded, that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. It’s unclear whether any of the trio faces significant legal exposure, but their unique positions could be valuable for special counsel Jack Smith, who is racing forward with both cases.
Cannon, a longtime Trump Organization employee, was pulled into campaign efforts to assess voter fraud and then served as a liaison for Trump with the National Archives as officials there pushed for the recovery of presidential records. Bobb, a lawyer for Trump’s 2024 campaign, aided in the Trump 2020 campaign’s post-election lawsuits. She later shifted to doing legal work for Trump that culminated in her signing a statement asserting classified records stored at Mar-a-Lago had been returned. Patel was chief of staff to the secretary of Defense as the Pentagon was grappling with Jan. 6. Trump also named Patel as one of his representatives to the National Archives upon leaving office, and he was later one of Trump’s chief surrogates in pushing claims that the former president declassified the records in his Florida home. “Typically, you don’t have two separate investigations and two separate sets of possible crimes to work with as you’re negotiating. Smith does have that here,” said Norm Eisen, a counsel for Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment who has penned analyses of both cases. “For him, it’s like a two-for-one sale. If he cuts a cooperation deal with some of these individuals, he can advance multiple cases at the same time.”