Donald Trump’s hefty stack of legal woes is piling up even more as the former president’s Florida estate became the subject of an FBI raid and as he was forced to sit for a deposition with the New York attorney general’s office.
The FBI on Monday executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida as part of a Justice Department inquiry into alleged mishandling of White House records. Then on Wednesday, Trump pleaded the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer questions from the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James in her probe of his family’s real estate business.
Trump is also among the prominent Republicans whom Justice Department investigators are asking about as they look into whether crimes were committed to interfere with the electoral vote count on Jan. 6, 2021, according to a person familiar with the probe.
While at least two former top White House officials have appeared before a grand jury recently, it’s not yet clear whether Trump is, or will become, the target of a federal criminal probe. To add even more to the list of probes edging closer to the former president, he is also under an Atlanta-area grand jury investigation by a local prosecutor.
The Justice Department is seeking information about a host of well-known allies in Trump’s effort to disrupt the transfer of power and claim a second term he didn’t win. Federal prosecutors revealed on July 27 they had obtained a new search warrant to access the phone of one of those allies, attorney John Eastman.
Meanwhile, the Jan. 6 select committee is still pursuing wide-ranging inquiries into Trump’s conduct and preparing to reveal reams of evidence to federal prosecutors as well.
“We’ve spoken a lot about accountability,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), a member of the select panel on the Capitol attack by Trump supporters. “And in order for that, for there to be true accountability, the Department of Justice may have to act.”
DOJ has signaled particular interest in the bevy of lawyers who surrounded Trump during his final weeks in the White House — including Eastman, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. Federal grand jury subpoenas that went out in recent months to witnesses in Georgia and Arizona cited potential contacts with Giuliani, Eastman and Ellis. The Washington Post first reported on the Arizona subpoena, and a person familiar with the Georgia document shared information about its contents with POLITICO.
DOJ has signaled particular interest in the bevy of lawyers who surrounded Trump during his final weeks in the White House — including Rudy Giuliani.