Jack Smith just had even more witnesses testify against Donald Trump to the grand jury
On Tuesday, Donald Trump was arrested and arraigned on federal criminal charges brought by DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith. But even as this was playing out in a courtroom in Miami, Smith’s team was putting even more witnesses against Trump in front of a different grand jury in Washington DC.
Nevada Republican Party Chair Michael McDonald reportedly testified to the grand jury on Tuesday, in Jack Smith’s January 6th criminal probe into Donald Trump and his co-conspirators. If the name “Michael McDonald” sounds familiar, it’s not just because of the famous singer with the same name. It’s because this same Michael McDonald was roped into the January 6th Committee’s investigation as well.
Of course back then McDonald pleaded the Fifth over and over during his congressional testimony. But his grand jury testimony certainly had to have played out very differently. When Congress interviews hostile witnesses, it’s something of a brawl. It’s an attempt at getting the witness to slip up and admit something that Congress can then use to make its case to the public.
But prosecutors don’t put a hostile witness in front of a grand jury for this kind of combative purpose. Instead, Jack Smith would have worked out some scenario that allowed or compelled McDonald to give real answers to every question. That could be done in the form of immunity, or a cooperation deal, or assurances of non-prosecution, or by limiting the questions strictly to things that McDonald witnessed but did not participate in.
In any case, there’s really no such thing (at least in a case like this) as a witness being put in front of a grand jury, being asked questions that incriminate them, and them pleading the Fifth the whole way through it. The fact that Michael McDonald testified yesterday means that he gave others up. We’ll find out later what circumstances allowed that to happen.
But the bigger story is that witnesses are still testifying to the grand jury in Jack Smith’s January 6th case. For that matter, Smith’s January 6th case didn’t even take a break on the day that Smith was in Miami for Trump’s arraignment in the espionage case. This points to Smith’s January 6th probe being massive in scope, and urgently moving forward.
How much longer will it be before Jack Smith criminally indicts Donald Trump in the January 6th probe? We still haven’t seen enough endgame moves to be able to even try to predict a specific date. But don’t be shocked if that indictment in Washington DC happens within weeks. It certainly seems in line to happen before Fani Willis brings her own Trump indictments in early August. This is shaping up to be the summer of Trump getting arrested over and over again.
