According to information from the US broadcaster CNN, there have been numerous subpoenas in the investigations into the handling of former US President Donald Trump with secret government documents. At least two dozen people close to Trump, including employees at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, have been asked by Special Counsel Jack Smith to testify before a grand jury.

This was reported by CNN on Thursday evening (local time), citing several sources familiar with the matter. The US Department of Justice had used the special counsel in November to outsource the politically sensitive investigations.

On the one hand, Smith is to deal with the investigations into secret government documents that Trump had kept in his private home Mar-a-Lago after leaving office. On the other hand, he should take care of investigations into the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. As CNN reported, Trump's communications advisor Margo Martin, who worked for him in the White House and then moved to Mar-a-Lago, appeared in Washington on Thursday for questioning.

The Federal Police FBI searched Trump's property in Florida last August and confiscated various classified documents, some with the highest level of secrecy. By keeping the documents in his private home long after Trump left office, he could have committed a criminal offense.

Secret government documents from his time as Vice President under Barack Obama were also found on US President Joe Biden in premises where they should not have been kept. Here, too, an independent special investigator is active.

Trump criticizes the investigation as a whole as politically motivated and has long complained that it was just an attempt by his opponents to prevent him from returning to the White House. He officially announced his candidacy for the presidency in November.