Speaking to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Tuesday, Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig revealed briefly some of the questions that witnesses were being asked while appearing before the grand jury were about former President Donald Trump.
Speaking to O'Donnell later, Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor on Robert Mueller's team, said that the fact that the grand jury asked about Trump means that he is a subject of the grand jury.
"What I'm getting at is, the definition of a 'subject' of an investigation is a technical term under the Department of Justice manual — the justice manual, and it is quite broad. It can include anybody who is actually a participant in a meeting, whether they have criminal liability or not. So, it can be somewhat of a misleading term. But I think your interview with Carol, what's stood out to me, was her telling you, in the grand jury, the prosecutors weren't asking questions that this was Donald Trump just happened to be there. They were asking questions, she said, [such as] 'What did he say? What was said to him? What was his reaction?' Those are questions of what we referred to as a subject-plus. Meaning somebody who you are actually looking at in terms of potential criminal liability."
All grand jury investigations are secret, and lawyers and jurors aren't allowed to speak about it. Witnesses, however, can speak about it. So, after seeing Marc Short leave a grand jury proceeding, questions surfaced about what exactly this grand jury was focusing on. It's clear the Justice Department has a series of investigations open for Jan. 6 attackers. They're also working on the fake electors scheme. But Short was working in the White House on and before Jan. 6 and he had nothing to do with the campaign or organizing the Jan. 6 rally. It prompted questions about why he was there if it wasn't to ask questions about what was happening in the White House on Jan. 6.
See Weissmann's commentary below: