this is cnn breaking news. it s the top of the hour on cnn newsroom. and we to begin with breaking news, the federal investigation into donald trump s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. a source says a federal grand jury has subpoenaed pat cipollone but now, we are learning that the justice department is expanding its probe. katelyn collins is breaking the story. you are learning about another person in the trump white house is being subpoenaed? it s not just any person it s the number 2 lawyer in the trump white house at the end of the administration, his name is patrick philbin, the deputy white house counsel, so working alongside pat cipollone, they both now have been subpoenaed for both documents and testimony in this federal criminal probe conducted by the us attorney s office in d.c., the justice department and the fbi. when you take this together, this is aggressive grand jury activity from the justice department and federal prosecutors as they are
lead to an indictment in florida. explain a concern with what the judge s potential power is. this judge, she can ask for arguing the law on both sides, and that appears to be what she s doing right now. she s a relatively new judge, and she is asking for something a lot of legal commentators would step back and say, this is typical. you can investigate anywhere where something took place but she is asking for is a little bit more legal explanation about why there s been grand jury activity around the obstruction part of the mar-a- lago documents probe in washington, d.c. and not just in the southern district of florida, where she sits, where this case is charged. there is a deadline set on that, and it s all coming together because there are bigger questions about whether a lawyer for one of the defendants charged in florida, whether he s able to keep representing other people who may be witnesses in that case. there are a lot of steps in a trial, particularly a trial like this on
there appeared to be no grand jury activity at the federal courthouse in washington, d.c. today. january 6th grand jury usually meets on tuesdays and thursdays and so that means the next likely meeting of that grand jury is thursday. most observers believe that that means that donald trump will not be indicted by that grand jury until thursday but this time might be different. this time we might not get our usual tip about when donald trump is indicted. our usual tip comes publicly from the defendant himself donald trump that is how the news media and the world learned the donald trump is being indicted the first time in manhattan and the second time in southern florida. prosecutors told donald trump and his lawyers so they could arrange is surrender for arrest and rain and then donald trump
smith s grand jury has been some investigating donald trump and his associates trying to overturn the last election leading up to and on january 6th. there appeared to be no grand jury activity at the federal courthouse in washington, d. c. today. the january 6th grand jury usually meets on tuesdays and thursdays and so that means the next likely meeting of that grand jury is thursday. most observers believe that that means that donald trump will not be indicted by that grand jury until thursday but this time might be different. this time we might not get our usual tip about when donald trump is indicted. our usual tip comes publicly from the defendant himself donald trump. that is how the news media and
signals there s grand jury activity today in the special counsel investigation around january 6th. so there has been grand jury activity for many, many months but the reason why this is notable today is that these two top prosecutors have been working on some of the most significant aspects of this investigation around donald trump getting testimony secured around the white house, what was happening in the white house even testimony from mike pence, the former vice president himself, about trump. and then they had not been around for a few weeks. there were too parts of other parts of the investigation that the grand jury appeared to look into such as the fake electors scheme that donald trump was using to try to overturn the vote in some states. we see prosecutors coming back today. it is not totally clear what that means but it s at the same time that the witnesses and the investigative activity where prosecutors are asking for information still and gathering evidence it seems to b