MSNBC analyst: Donald Trump is subject of Robert Mueller grand jury

| 9:53 pm EDT April 3, 2018
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Earlier this evening, the Washington Post reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had informed Donald Trump that he’s under investigation, but that he’s not a “criminal target.” Palmer Report explained that in these kinds of tiered investigations, what that really means is that Trump simply hasn’t been officially designated as a target yet, and that as a practical matter he is in fact the criminal target. Now a prominent MSNBC analyst is taking things even further.

Here’s how the WaPo phrased things: “Mueller told Trump’s attorneys the president remains under investigation but is not currently a criminal target.” Here’s what MSNBC analyst Malcolm Nance tweeted in response to that WaPo report: “ITS OFFICIAL: TRUMP IS UNDER INVESTIGATION & SUBJECT OF A GRAND JURY PROBE. He can become a target at any time.” This is, of course, correct.

The key here is the confirmation from Mueller that Donald Trump is in fact official under criminal investigation. While this seems like a given, it’s an important legal distinction, because it means that Mueller is investigating Donald Trump’s actions in order to determine whether they were criminal in nature. That in turn means Mueller has reason to suspect or believe that Trump’s actions were criminal in nature. Sam Nunberg publicly announced on cable news last month that he had been subpoenaed by a Mueller grand jury to testify about his communications with ten people, and Donald Trump was one of them. This means that Trump is in fact a subject of the grand jury.

What’s the difference between a subject of a grand jury and a criminal target of a grand jury? Trump is still merely a subject because Robert Mueller hasn’t yet begun presenting evidence of Donald Trump’s guilt to the grand jury. If and when that inevitably happens, Trump will officially become a criminal target. As Nance said, that can now happen at any time. As we explained earlier, Trump has unofficially been the primary criminal target in this investigation all along.