Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was the personal attorney of former President Donald J. Trump, was interviewed last week by federal prosecutors investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, people familiar with the matter said.
The voluntary interview, which took place under a so-called plea agreement, was a significant development in the election interference probe led by Jack Smith, the special prosecutor, and the latest indication that Mr. Smith and his team are actively seeking witnesses who may cooperate in the case.
Those familiar with the matter said the session with Mr. Giuliani touched on some of the most important aspects of the special counsel’s investigation into the ways in which Mr. Trump sought to maintain power after losing the election to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“The appearance was entirely voluntary and conducted in a professional manner,” said Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Mr. Giuliani.
A plea agreement is an understanding between prosecutors and individuals who are the subject of a criminal investigation that may precede a formal cooperation agreement. Subjects agree to provide helpful information to the government, sometimes to tell their side of the story, to prevent potential indictments or to avoid testifying under subpoena before a grand jury. In return, prosecutors agree not to use those statements against them in future criminal proceedings unless they are found to have lied.
Prosecutors working for Mr. Smith asked Mr. Giuliani about a plan to create fake lists of pro-Trump voters in key swing states that were actually won by Mr. Biden, a person familiar with the matter said, speaking at condition of anonymity discuss an ongoing criminal investigation. They focused specifically on the role played in that effort by John Eastman, another lawyer who advised Mr. Trump on ways to stay in office after his defeat.
Mr. Giuliani also discussed Sidney Powell, a lawyer who was briefly associated with Mr. Trump’s campaign and who made baseless claims about a cabal of foreign actors hacking voting machines to steal the election from Mr. Trump, said the face.
Ms. Powell, who was sanctioned by a federal judge for promoting conspiracy theories about voting machines, also participated in an Oval Office meeting in December 2020 during which Mr. Trump was presented with a brazen plan — against who opposed Mr. Giuliani — to use the military to seize control of the voting machines and repeat the election.
The person said prosecutors further asked Mr. Giuliani about the scene at the Willard Hotel days before the attack on the Capitol. Mr. Giuliani and a group of close Trump advisers — among them Mr. Eastman, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and Mr. Trump’s current adviser Boris Epstein — had gathered at the hotel, near the White home to discuss strategies before a violent mob storms the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, interrupting the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory over Mr. Trump.
The proposed session with Mr. Giuliani, elements of which were previously reported by CNN, came as Mr. Smith’s team continued its investigation into Mr. Trump’s election meddling, even as he prepared for the trial of the former president on separate charges of interfering with national security-endangered secrets and obstructing government efforts to recover classified documents.
Prosecutors are taking witnesses to a grand jury and conducting separate interviews with others as they try to piece together a fuller picture of the various ways Mr. Trump and his allies are promoting baseless claims that the election was stolen from him and seeking to reverse his election defeat.
In some cases, they appear to be assessing whether they can extract useful information without necessarily agreeing to formal cooperative agreements.
Last week, The New York Times reported that prosecutors were negotiating a plea deal with Michael Roman, the former director of Election Day operations for Mr. Trump’s 2020 campaign. Mr. Roman also helped put together the so-called fake electoral plan.
The drive to compile a list of pro-Trump electors from swing states won by Mr. Biden is one of a number of components of Mr. Smith’s investigation. Prosecutors also investigated whether Mr. Trump and his allies solicited donors by raising money through false claims of election fraud, probed attempts to use the Justice Department to lend credence to claims of election fraud, and tried to piece together a detailed picture of the role played by Mr. Trump in fomenting the attack on the Capitol and disrupting the certification of his loss by Congress.
It remains unclear whether Mr. Giuliani will face charges in the special counsel’s investigation. He is also under scrutiny on many of the same topics by the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, who is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his election loss in that swing state.
As part of the investigation into Mr. Smith, prosecutors questioned Mr. Roman’s deputy, Gary Michael Brown, last week before a grand jury in Federal District Court in Washington that is investigating efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the election. Federal prosecutors on Wednesday are also due to interview Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who took a call from Mr. Trump in early January 2021 in which the former president asked him to “find” enough votes to impeach him. put over the head of the election in this state.
A longtime ally of Mr. Trump, who served two terms as mayor of New York, Mr. Giuliani effectively led the former president’s efforts to overturn his defeat in the last presidential race and for months has been a major focus of the Justice Department’s wide-ranging investigation into the post-election period. His name appeared in several subpoenas sent to former aides to Mr. Trump and to scores of Republican state officials involved in the scheme to create fraudulent ballots.
Last year, shortly before Mr. Smith was hired as special counsel, the Justice Department issued a subpoena to Mr. Giuliani for documents related to his representation of Mr. Trump, including those detailing all payments that has received A group of federal prosecutors, including Thomas Windham, pursued different strands of the probe into Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in office before Mr. Smith was appointed, and they continue to play a key role in the investigation.
Among the things prosecutors are looking into is the inner workings of Mr. Trump’s fundraising arm, Save America PAC. The records subpoenaed by Mr. Giuliani may include some related to payments made by the PAC, according to a person familiar with the matter.
More recently, prosecutors have raised questions about Mr. Trump’s false claims that his election defeat was caused by widespread fraud and how he aggressively cashed in on those claims. Prosecutors have delved into whether those around Mr. Trump knew he had lost the race but continued to collect money from the alleged fraud.
The special House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has publicly raised questions about Mr. Trump’s fundraising for the first time, and the special counsel’s team has picked up on the topic. Among other questions they have asked witnesses is whether their lawyers are being paid by the political action committee, which has become a repository for money raised by Mr. Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud.
Investigators have reviewed the timeline with various witnesses, including asking people about election night and what Mr. Giuliani may have said to Mr. Trump before his defiant speech declaring he had won the election, as well as about Jan. 6 and Trump’s actions that day.
The special counsel’s office has focused on Mr. Trump’s mindset and who was telling him he lost, according to people familiar with the matter. Among the questions were whether there were concerns among people working with the campaign about the language used in the December 2020 scam TV ads and who signed off on the ad copy.
Prosecutors also subpoenaed former Vice President Mike Pence, who was a key focus of Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in office as Mr. Trump tried to pressure him to use his ceremonial role overseeing congressional certification to blocked Mr. Biden from being certified.