Special counsel just got access to Mar-a-Lago's 'eyes and ears': former Pentagon investigator

Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed a broad array of people at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort as part of the investigation into Trump's mishandling of classified information.

Some of these new subpoenas are highly significant, argued former Pentagon special counsel Ryan Goodman on Thursday's edition of CNN's "OutFront," because they involve people whom Trump may never have even noticed were seeing his activity.

"There are at least two dozen witnesses," said anchor Erin Burnett. "And ... these witnesses include people that would have seen a lot, but that maybe Trump wouldn't have noticed. Restaurant servers, people like that."

"I think of it the same way," said Goodman. "They might be invisible to him. But they are the eyes and ears, and they can see things. Or they can know things might, even be somewhat rumor, but then they can at least give the investigators leads, so they can tell the investigators who is present in different conversations."

READ: Deadly disinformation: The underreported scandal at the New York Times

"Seems as though that's exactly what happened with the Select Committee on January 6," added Goodman. "There are important lower-level White House staff that do give testimony for example, the person that greets Trump as he enters the White House after his Ellipse speech and tells him that there's rioting down at the Capitol, that's an important marker, but that was a lower-level staff person; he might not have noticed or thought about that conversation."

Trump has insisted that the hundreds of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago were his prerogative to do with as he wished, and some of his defenders have argued he has the right to retroactively classify documents in his mind, without telling anyone.

Watch the segment below or at this link.

Ryan Goodman says special counsel has Mar-a-Lago's "eyes and ears"www.youtube.com