The United States Justice Department issued roughly 40 subpoenas last week as part of its ongoing criminal investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot, with the majority of recipients being close to former President Donald Trump.
Among the people subpoenaed by the agency include close advisers to the Republican businessman as well as former White House officials and staffers from Trump's 2020 presidential campaign, ranging from lower-level staffers to those at the highest levels of the campaign.
DOJ Subpoenas to Trump Colleagues
Sources familiar with the matter said that at least one Trump adviser, Boris Epshteyn, recently had his phone taken as part of the investigation. Epshteyn did not respond to a request for comment regarding the situation.
The subpoenas are reportedly seeking information from witnesses about the former president's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the events leading up to and surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill attack, and the fundraising and spending efforts of the Trump-aligned Save America PAC, as per ABC News.
The list of individuals given subpoenas includes former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien and Sean Dollman, who worked for Trump's 2020 presidential campaign as chief financial officer. Also included is Trump's former deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino.
The DOJ's subpoenas involved more than 30 individuals with connections to the former president as the department aims to get documents and in some cases, testimony before a grand jury in Washington, D.C.
According to CNN, the issued subpoenas and other investigative activity came in the days just before the Justice Department began its standard pre-election quiet period, a 60-day period before the midterm election during which the department generally seeks to avoid taking overt investigative action in politically sensitive probes to avoid the appearance of trying to affect the election.
Criminal Investigations
Despite issuing more than three dozen subpoenas, they were broad in scope, as reviewed by CNN, seeking information on a range of issues, including the fake elector scheme, Trump's primary fundraising, and political vehicle, Save America PAC, the organizing of the Trump rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and any communications with a broad list of people who worked to overturn the 2020 election results.
One of the subpoenas seek records related to compensation provided to or received from a list of people that included Trump lawyers and campaign staffers through Jan. 20, 2021. It also requests communications with anyone in the Justice Department.
Furthermore, the subpoenas seek communications with some of the same players previously identified in subpoenas served to fake electors in various states earlier this year, including former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Victoria Toensing.
Some of the subpoenas also seek any information that recipients previously turned over to the House Select Committee that is investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot. A former New York City police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, also received a subpoena for documents and testimony.
The extent of the investigation has come into focus in recent days despite being overshadowed by the government's legal clash with Trump and his lawyers over a separate inquiry into the handling of presidential records at Mar-a-Lago, the New York Times reported.
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