Turns out the DOJ grand jury into Trump world is reaching far wider than we knew
When the news broke on Wednesday that Merrick Garland’s DOJ had subpoenaed a few fake electors and at least one Trump official, we pointed out that these kinds of leaks usually only tell us perhaps 5-10% of the overall story at any given time. Sure enough, by late Wednesday night, the news surfaced that the DOJ had also seized the cellphone of the Nevada Republican Party state chair. But it turns out that was still just a small fraction of the story.
By Thursday morning the news had broken that the DOJ also carried out a search warrant at the home of Trump DOJ official Jeffrey Clark on Wednesday – a sign that the DOJ’s fake elector probe is in an advanced stage. And now the news has broken that the DOJ has also subpoenaed infamous Arizona Republican Party state chair Kelli Ward.
Even with all that’s now leaked out, we still likely only have a fraction of the full story. The DOJ usually doesn’t announce these kinds of things itself, so we’re left to rely on subpoena targets who go running to the media, or neighbors who happen to see a search warrant being carried out, and so on. This scattershot reporting means that we don’t tend to start getting the full picture until indictments are filed.
It’s also worth noting that the DOJ is now going after some infamously high profile names in Trump world. Jeffrey Clark was a high ranking Trump DOJ official. Kelli Ward has been infamously pro-Trump for some time. The DOJ clearly isn’t hesitating to go after big names, or controversial names, or even Republican Party leaders. It’s simply following the evidence, and while it’s taken a long time for its probe to steadily build up to the point where judges are signing off on things like search warrants of Clark’s home, the probe is clearly further along (and broader) than most people thought.
