At least two dozen people working at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence have been subpoenaed, along with members of Trump’s inside circle, in the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s investigation into the ex-president’s unlawful retention and refusal to return hundreds of classified documents and other government items taken from the White House.
“Trump’s communications aide Margo Martin, who worked in the White House and then moved with Trump to Florida, appeared before the grand jury in Washington, DC. One of special counsel Jack Smith’s senior-most prosecutors was involved in the interview,” CNN reveals in an exclusive report. “Smith has sought testimony from a range of people close to Trump – from his own attorneys who represent him in the matter to staffers who work on the grounds of Mar-a-Lago, including a housekeeper and restaurant servers, sources said.”
One source told CNN, “They’re casting an extremely wide net – anyone and everyone who might have seen something.”
CNN adds that “federal investigators have talked to a Mar-a-Lago staff member seen on security camera footage moving boxes from a storage room with Trump aide Walt Nauta, who has already spoken with investigators.”
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That security camera footage was invoked when the FBI sought a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago.
In a separate report on the classified documents probe, ABC News notes that “Special counsel Jack Smith is pushing to question an attorney for former President Donald Trump about an alleged phone call the two held as investigators were building evidence about Trump’s potential obstruction of the government’s efforts to retrieve classified materials that he had retained after leaving the White House, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.”
Smith is attempting “to pierce attorney-client privilege and force Trump attorney Evan Corcoran to testify.”
Commenting on the CNN report, constitutional law expert and professor emeritus Laurence Tribe says, “So much for all the nonsense about the Special Counsel not taking Trump’s deliberate concealment of top secret government documents seriously in light of Biden’s and Pence’s wholly different mishandling of classified documents!”