(CNN) A federal judge has ordered several former aides to Donald Trump, including Mark Meadows, to testify before a grand jury as part of the criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, rejecting the former president’s claims of executive privilege, multiple sources confirmed to CNN.
Trump’s legal team had challenged subpoenas issued by special counsel Jack Smith demanding testimony and documents from Meadows, the former president’s White House chief of staff, as well as several others in asserting executive privilege.
In a sealed decision last week, then-chief Justice Beryl Howell rejected the Trump team’s claims of privilege for Meadows and other top Trump administration officials who were cited by Smith, including former director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe, former aide Homeland Security Officer Robert O’Brien and former Homeland Security Department official Ken Cuccinelli, sources told CNN.
Trump’s privilege claims for other former White House advisers, including Stephen Miller and Dan Scavino, were also rejected, the sources said.
Trump’s legal team is expected to appeal the decision, a source familiar with the matter said.
ABC News first reported the ruling.
Some of the witnesses who have already appeared before the grand jury but refused to answer some questions related to their interactions with Trump may now have to return.
A Trump spokesperson criticized the decision in a statement, accusing the Justice Department of “continually departing from standard norms by attempting to destroy the long-accepted and constitutionally established standards of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege.”
“There is no factual or legal basis or substance to any case against President Trump. The deranged Democrats and their comrades in the mainstream media are corrupting the legal process and arming the justice system to manipulate public opinion, because they are clearly losing control. political battle”.
O’Brien and Cuccinelli recently appeared before the grand jury after receiving subpoenas as part of the Smith investigation.
The investigation into efforts to nullify the 2020 election prior to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol is one of two ongoing investigations overseen by Special Counsel Smith.
It is independent of the state-level criminal investigation in Georgia related to efforts by Trump and his allies to rig the results of the 2020 election there and another in New York focused on the former president’s alleged role in secret money payments to a adult movie star
Smith is also overseeing the criminal investigation stemming from the discovery of classified documents recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-lago residence.
This story has been updated with additional details.
