Former Trump aide claims he’s profiting off legal woes: ‘This is simply a grift’

Former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin asserted that former President Trump is profiting off legal woes after he announced Tuesday he was notified he is a target in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Jan. 6 investigation.

In a Truth Social post Tuesday morning, Trump said he received a target letter Sunday. “Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an arrest and indictment,” he wrote.  

Speaking on ABC’s “The View,” Griffin argued Trump is “kind of worshipping these lines of like, ‘I was indicted for you.’ He was not indicted for you, he was indicted because he refused to accept, or he’s likely going to be indicted, because he refused to accept, he lost the election.”

Griffin, a co-host of the show who has become a vocal critic of Trump, nodded toward a New York Times report last month that said 10 percent of money raised by the Trump campaign is now going to a political action committee that has paid the former president’s personal legal fees.

“It’s all a grift. At the end of the day, this is simply a grift,” she declared.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith last year to oversee the Justice Department’s investigations into Jan. 6, 2021, covering “whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power.” A large focus of the investigation has centered around Trump’s attempts to remain in office following the 2020 election.  

Griffin said Tuesday she voluntarily met with DOJ investigators and the House Jan. 6 committee, adding, “they were very interested in sort of whether he knew he lost the election.”

“[Trump] said to me directly that he acknowledged he lost, but I don’t know if he’s changed his mind since then,” Griffin said. “But that matters because it will allow them to prove that he knew he lost, and he still wanted to incite a mob to go to the Capitol and stormed the Capitol.”  

It is unclear the specific charges Trump could face if prosecutors move forward in the investigation surrounding the Capitol riot, though legal experts have offered a model prosecution memo arguing there is sufficient evidence to bring a case against Trump.

Smith and his team spoke with several witnesses on the matter over the past few weeks.