executive privilege over certain aspects of their testimony. they indeed had to answer more questions from a federal grand jury. new york times also reports that donald trump s former social media guru william russell and william harrison, they were for trump when he was in the white house. they also appeared before a grand jury on thursday. melissa, what does this tell you about the status of the doj investigations? how significant are those testimonies? you joined the doj. the trump administration have been claiming executive privilege to prevent the testimony of these individuals at the grand jury. we do not know what particular case or investigation this is dealing with. it could be the mar-a-lago documents. it could be january 6th. either way, these individuals now have to come before the grand jury and provide testimony on certain aspects that will surely be helpful to the investigation. this is not necessarily mean that we need these indictments or criminal charges. but it w
producer said, a few minutes later, she saw two men entering the same area of the third floor after telling a martial they were here for the grand jury, so we can maybe guess, with an educated backing that pat cipollone was talking to the grand jury for the d.o.j., and there is also the new york times reporting that other trump aides have done so as well, dan scavino jr., also social media guru, they call him william russell, william b. harrison, so these people are close to donald trump and pat cipollone, we know obviously his relationship pretty well with trump, what does that say to you about this investigation? well, it suggests it could either be about january 6th or it could be about mar-a-lago if they re going to the grand jury, but this is pretty high level stuff. there was some reporting in recent months that the justice department was trying to work through some executive privilege issues. it pat cipollone was there today to testify, it appears that maybe they have resolv
mishandling of classified documents, obstruction and destruction of government property at plarg. in addition to potentially slowing down the investigation, the special master review provided trump s lawyers with a public platform to make their arguments about why they believe the mar-a-lago search was unfair. arguments that have been rejected over and over and now over again by the courts and barring an appeal by team trump to the u.s. supreme court, that public platform for the ex-president is now gone, giving a major boost for an investigation that has been steadily moving forward despite this special master review process. the new york times reports this, quote, in recent weeks, several witnesses connected to the investigation have appeared in front of a grand jury in federal district court in washington. on thursday, that included three close aides to trump, according to two people familiar with the matter. those aides were dan scavino jr., mr. trump s former social media guru,
scavino s name was all over trump s official daily diary of the six. he s one of the former president stresses advisers. he began working for trump when he was 16 years old, when he was hired as his golf caddie. in 2016, trump appointed him the social media campaign manager. scavino s role on january six is especially intriguing because we know he was often a conduit for trump s conversations. quote, one source with this could be no routinely handing his phone to trump to take calls. scavino, according to the source, had an official phone and personal phone. this new york times report earlier this week, because of subpoenas role as a social media guru, he may have had knowledge on what would transpire generous excess. quote, on december 19th, 2020, the same day mr. trump tweeted, big protests in d. c. and generous six, be there, will be wild, users of the donald began sharing a specific techniques, tactics and procedures on assault in the capital.