- The DOJ has a broad ongoing investigation into events around the Capitol riot.
- About 40 people close to Trump have been subpoenaed this past week, according to The New York Times.
The Justice Department subpoenaed about 40 people over the past week and seized cell phone devices from two associates of Donald Trump, showing another sign of the agency's intensifying probe of the events around the January 6 Capitol riot, according to the New York Times.
Those included in the flurry of new subpoenas have varying levels of ties to Trump, including Dan Scavino, the former White House deputy chief of staff for communications, and Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner and friend of Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who both spread claims of election fraud, The Times reported. Kerik was also interviewed by the January 6 committee.
An attorney for Scavino did not return a request for comment. Kerik's attorney, Timothy Parlatore, told Insider that federal agents came to his client's home on Tuesday. He described the subpoena as "overbroad and nonspecific" with a list of names and claimed that Kerik has been open to cooperating with investigations.
In addition to the subpoenas, federal prosecutors seized electronic devices from Boris Epshteyn, a Trump lawyer who has also been subpoenaed by the January 6 committee, and Mike Roman, a former election operations director for the Trump campaign who helped spread claims of election fraud.
Epshteyn and Roman could not be reached for comment.
The subpoenas seek broad information around the plot to interfere with the 2020 vote using a slate of fake electors and — in a more recent development in the DOJ's investigation — Trump's fundraising vehicle, Save America, according to The Times.
It's unclear how the PAC is related to the DOJ's multi-pronged inquiry into the Capitol riot, but a source familiar with the investigation previously told CNN that the department may be investigating whether people associated with Trump used baseless claims of election fraud to solicit donations.
Parlatore said that Kerik's subpoena asked for "any and everything, somewhat tangentially related to" the Trump campaign.
The Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment.
It's not disclosed who else has been contacted in this new round of subpoenas. The Times previously reported on Friday that Stephen Miller and Brian Jack, two top Trump advisors, were among more than a dozen people who were reached by the DOJ.
Other former Trump aides subpoenaed in recent weeks include William B. Harrison, William S. Russell, and Nicholas Luna, as well as Ivanka Trump's chief of staff Julie Radford.