Trump ally Kerik still attempting to keep secret some 2020 election records in lawsuit
By Katelyn Polantz, CNN Reporter, Crime and Justice
(CNN) — Bernie Kerik is refusing to turn over more than 300 records sought in a 2020 election-related lawsuit just before he is set to talk with the special counsel’s office, saying they fall under attorney confidentiality.
Kerik, a former New York police commissioner who worked alongside former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani in the weeks after the 2020 election to search for evidence of fraud, had previously held back hundreds more documents from the lawyers for Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman. The two Georgia election workers have said Giuliani made false claims of ballot counting mishaps in Atlanta that defamed them.
The records, apparently reflecting work Kerik and Giuliani did for Donald Trump as he sought to hold onto the presidency in 2020, were held back in the lawsuit, as well as when congressional investigators sought documents from him last year.
The Trump campaign, which as Giuliani’s client wanted some records to remain secret, allowed Kerik to turn over more than 500 documents in recent weeks after their reasons for confidentiality were challenged in the lawsuit.
But 318 additional documents still aren’t in the Moss and Freeman team’s hands. The election workers’ lawyers on Friday asked a federal judge to review those records privately and decide whether they should remain protected under attorney-client privilege.
While the document fight in the lawsuit is ongoing, Kerik also has recently agreed to speak with special counsel investigators looking at Trump and others’ actions after the 2020 election. His attorney, Timothy Parlatore, told CNN last weekend that Kerik and his lawyers would speak to investigators “in about a week.”
“We have a meeting scheduled in about a week with the special counsel’s office to talk about a lot of the efforts that the Giuliani team was taking at the time to investigate fraud, and that’s really going to get into, you know, the core of whether they can charge somebody with having corrupt intent,” Parlatore said at the time.
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