The services of a second federal grand jury in the criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents from his time in office have been revealed. This additional jury is in Florida and was the subject of recent reports, including in CNN.
That Florida jury, which is obviously much closer to where the documents were largely harbored, was hearing testimony from Trump associate Taylor Budowich on Wednesday. Budowich’s roles around Trump have included communications, with him handling spokesperson duties for the ex-president and a political action committee (PAC) associated with him.
Elsewhere, Trump’s legal team gathered earlier this week at the federal Justice Department, presumably upset at the seeming indications of imminent charges for Trump, though the emergence of an actual case against Donald is just speculation rather than anything confirmed. Still, it’s not as though federal officials are generally going to provide much of any update on the course of their probe until it’s go-time and publicly accessible criminal charges are filed. Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is handling the criminal probes both into the circumstances of those documents and attempts after the last presidential election to secure another term for Trump despite his loss, has the authority to bring criminal charges if he so chooses, although he is still generally under the leadership of Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Trump seems to think criminal charges are potentially looming for him in the documents case, in which it was also recently revealed that prosecutors have a recording allegedly capturing Donald admitting to harboring a classified doc and acknowledging its protected status. Trump reposted an earlier rant so that near the top of his feed early Wednesday was the following message, which deceptively represents the status of a large number of files associated with Joe Biden, which simply haven’t been actually kept hidden or without investigative access: “HOW CAN DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT’S WERE CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WON’T BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING, INCLUDING THE FACT THAT HE HAS 1,850 BOXES, MUCH OF IT CLASSIFIED, AND SOME DATING BACK TO HIS SENATE DAY WHEN EVEN DEMOCRAT SENATORS ARE SHOCKED.”
