Former President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner have been subpoenaed by special counsel Jack Smith to testify before a federal grand jury about Trump's attempts to stay in power after the 2020 election and his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, two sources briefed on the matter told The New York Times on Wednesday.
Smith has proven himself to be an aggressive special counsel and the latest subpoena shows there are no limits to the witnesses he may call, no matter how high profile or close they are to the former president. This report comes just two weeks after it was revealed that Smith also subpoenaed former Vice President Mike Pence to testify.
"About time," tweeted former U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance.
Fellow former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman told MSNBC that the subpoenas show that Smith is "not messing around."
"It also tells me not only where he's going and where he's been in the sense that this is an end-game move," he said. "That's not to say indictments next week, but Pence and these two you do when you're really toward the end."
Litman predicted that Smith targeting his eldest daughter will "enrage" the former president.
"Basically, he puts her in a chair and says, 'inculpate your father, please,' and she's legally obligated to do it," Litman said. "She'll squirm but there'll be certain, I think, events and pieces of testimony she has to give up. She can try to claim executive privilege. The courts have made quick work of that and they would again with her."
NBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said the subpoena shows Smith is moving at "light speed" in his investigations. In just three months, Kirschner noted, Smith has already subpoenaed Pence, former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Trump's criminal defense attorneys. "And now he's subpoenaed Trump's daughter and son-in-law."
"Why is it a big deal?" he said in a video, "because Donald Trump's own daughter is going to present sharply incriminating testimony proving that her father was waging a pressure campaign against his own vice president trying to get him to join Trump's conspiracy trying to get him to commit a number of federal felonies."
"When your own daughter, your own, blood testifies against you… that is going to be some of the most powerful, most sharply incriminating testimony," he added. "You know the more we see of Jack Smith, he really does seem to be a without fear or favor kind of prosecutor. And it becomes pretty clear based on everything we've seen, based on all outward appearances that to Jack Smith, justice matters."
It's not clear at this time whether Trump will attempt to block his daughter and son-in-law from testifying on the grounds of executive privilege, as he has sought to do with other witnesses.
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Former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal predicted that Ivanka Trump would "resist" the subpoena.
"That is the Trump family motto," he told MSNBC. "They're more scared of telling the truth under oath than a vampire is of garlic."
Both Ivanka Trump and Kushner served as White House advisers in the Trump administration.
Ivanka Trump was in the Oval Office on the morning of Jan. 6 while her father called Pence to pressure him to block the congressional certification of the Electoral College results naming President Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election.
Trump and his daughter then went together to his rally at the Ellipse near the White House. His supporters then began storming towards the Capitol building where they began to chant "Hang Mike Pence!" for his supposed "betrayal" of Trump's wishes.
Kushner also arrived from the Middle East on Jan. 6 and went to the White House hours after the riot started. He and his wife tried to tell the President to send the mob home and peacefully transfer power.
Kushner and Ivanka Trump both testified before the Jan. 6 House select committee in videotaped interviews describing the day in question. The video testimony was replayed during the committee's public hearings, including one notable clip in which Ivanka Trump made it clear that she accepted there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the election, despite her father's repeated claims otherwise.
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