Here's the latest on the investigation into Donald Trump:
- Former President Donald Trump said last week he has received a letter notifying him that he is the target of an investigation by a grand jury examining the Jan. 6 riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
- The letter mentions three federal statutes related to the deprivation of rights, conspiracy to defraud the United States and witness tampering, two attorneys with knowledge of the document said.
- The grand jury has been meeting in Washington, D.C., in the probe led by special counsel Jack Smith and recently heard testimony from William Russell, a former White House aide who now works for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.
- Trump has been indicted twice this year. He was indicted in Florida last month in a case related to his handling of classified documents. And he was indicted in New York earlier this year in a case centered on $130,000 paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
Former Trump DOJ official Richard Donoghue has met with the special counsel’s office
Former senior Justice Department official Richard Donoghue says he has been interviewed by Smith’s office, but has not been called to testify before the federal grand jury investigating Jan. 6 and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Donoghue, who confirmed the meeting with Smith’s office to NBC News on Monday, served as acting deputy attorney general near the end of the Trump administration. He later testified before the House Jan. 6 committee that investigated the Capitol riot.
The special counsel’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night.
In his testimony to the House panel last year, Donoghue said that weeks before the attack on the Capitol, Trump had urged Justice Department officials, including then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, to “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
Former Giuliani colleague turned over documents to special counsel this week
Smith received more documents this week as part of his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The lawyer who represents former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said he provided thousands of pages of documents to Smith's office over the weekend.
The attorney, Tim Parlatore, said Monday that he submitted the records to Smith’s office Sunday.
“I have shared all of these documents, approximately 600MB, mostly pdfs, with the Special Counsel and look forward to sitting down with them in about 2 weeks to discuss,” Parlatore said in a statement.
Trump lashes out after target letter from special counsel
Trump said earlier this month that he was notified he is the target of an investigation by a Washington-based grand jury examining the Jan. 6 riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and indictment,” he posted on his Truth Social account.
Trump said that effectively means he will be indicted for a third time. He added that he is “Joe Biden’s NUMBER ONE POLITICAL OPPONENT, who is largely dominating him in the race for the Presidency.”
It was not immediately clear what the charges would be or whether anyone else received a target letter. People who have been informed that they are targets of criminal probes are often, but not always, indicted.
Special counsel’s target letter to Trump cites three federal statutes
The letter that Trump received from Smith informing him that he is a target of the federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election mentions three federal statutes related to the deprivation of rights, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and tampering with a witness.
Those three federal statutes were included in the letter Trump said he received earlier this month, according to two attorneys with direct knowledge of the document. The context surrounding the statutes cited in the target letter is unclear, and their inclusion in the letter doesn’t necessarily mean Trump will be charged with related counts or that an indictment would be limited to only those three statutes.
Dozens of witnesses have testified as the Jan. 6-focused grand jury probes Trump
Federal grand jurors probing Trump’s attempts to stop the transfer of presidential power after his 2020 election loss have heard testimony from dozens of witnesses in a wide-ranging investigation that has examined his conduct spanning the time from before Election Day through the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, an NBC News analysis found.
Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November to oversee the investigations into Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to stay in power, has led a sprawling investigation in the almost eight months since.
While a grand jury in Miami indicted Trump on 37 counts on seven federal charges in early June in connection with the documents investigation and alleged efforts to obstruct it, a federal grand jury in Washington has continued to meet on the third floor of the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in the 2020 election inquiry.