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It’s been about a month since the public learned of significant developments in the Mar-a-Lago scandal, and at the time, the news related to special counsel Jack Smith trying to compel one of Donald Trump’s attorneys to testify before a grand jury. Attorney-client privilege didn’t apply, the special counsel’s office argued, because the lawyer in question, Evan Corcoran, had conversations in furtherance of a crime.
Of course, Corcoran isn’t the only person in the former president’s orbit of interest to Smith and his team. CNN reported overnight:
At least two dozen people — from Mar-a-Lago resort staff to members of Donald Trump’s inner circle at the Florida estate — have been subpoenaed to testify to a federal grand jury that’s investigating the former president’s handling of classified documents, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN. ... The staffers are of interest to investigators because of what they may have seen or heard while on their daily duties around the estate, including whether they saw boxes or documents in Trump’s office suite or elsewhere.
According to the CNN report, which has not been independently confirmed by MSNBC or NBC News, we’re not just talking about people who regularly interacted personally with the former president at his glorified country club. Smith has also reportedly sought testimony from people who worked at Mar-a-Lago, “including a housekeeper and restaurant servers.”
After all, they might’ve seen or heard relevant details, too.
The same CNN report added that, as part of the same investigation, one of the special counsel’s most senior prosecutors helped question Margo Martin, a former White House communications aide who moved with Trump to south Florida, and who appeared before the grand jury hearing evidence in this case.
Under normal circumstances, developments along these lines, signaling an intensifying criminal investigation into a former president — who also happens to be the apparent frontrunner for his party’s 2024 nomination — would be quite dramatic. For Trump, however, the news has to compete with parallel developments in several other ongoing criminal investigations.
Indeed, as dozens face subpoenas in the Mar-a-Lago probe, the former president is facing the very real possibility of a New York indictment in a hush money scandal, a possible indictment in Georgia as part of Trump’s alleged election-interference efforts, and possible charges as part of the federal investigation into the Jan. 6 attack.
If it hasn’t already, the political world should probably prepare itself for the prospect of a major party presidential nominee facing multiple criminal indictments during his candidacy for the nation’s highest office.