Former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell testified Thursday before a grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents.
CNN identified Grenell as he was departing the courthouse in Washington, DC.
Grenell was subpoenaed to testify in special counsel Jack Smith’s ongoing criminal probe, according to a source familiar with the matter.
While serving in the administration, Grenell embarked upon an effort to declassify documents that were of interest to Trump because the then-president believed they could delegitimize the Russia investigation. Grenell remained in Trump’s orbit even after the former president left office and has been seen at his Mar-a-Lago resort as recently as last week.
Grenell has also commented publicly about Trump’s retention of classified documents and the former president’s still-unproven claims that the materials he kept had been declassified.
“It was all declassified papers (not accessible digitally) and kept in a former President’s office – guarded by the United States Secret Service,” Grenell said in an August 2022 tweet.
Grenell also told NBC News that month: “There is no approval process for the president of the United States to declassify intelligence. There is this phony idea that he must provide notification for declassification but that’s just silly. Who is he supposed to notify? I think it’s the height of swampism to think the president should seek bureaucrats’ approval.”
The same grand jury investigating the documents kept at Mar-a-Lago has also heard testimony from Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien. He appeared earlier this year and answered questions about conversations he had with Trump before he left office, according to the source familiar with the matter.
CNN reported at the time that…
Read the full article here