“Quite significant”: Longtime Trump legal adviser Boris Epshteyn interviewed by DOJ

Boris Epshteyn, a longtime legal adviser and confidant of Donald Trump, was scheduled to be interviewed on Thursday by prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith’s office as they investigate the former president’s role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, according to ABC News.

It’s not clear what prosecutors wanted to discuss with Epshteyn, but ​​as one of Trump’s closest advisers in recent years, he is potentially in position to offer insight into both of the investigations that Smith is overseeing. Those include Trump’s efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election, including the apparent coup attempt of Jan. 6, as well as the ex-president’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Epshteyn has remained a member of Trump’s inner circle, serving as a special assistant when he was in the White House and frequently appearing on conservative media as a Trump spokesman. He now serves as a senior adviser on Trump’s 2024 campaign and has apparently become something of an in-house counsel, working with lawyers defending Trump in separate investigations. 

“As a close adviser, he may have had direct personal conversations with Mr. Trump about these topics and personally witnessed actions taken by the former president, which could be either exculpatory or incriminating,” said John Kaley, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.

Epshteyn has apparently received criticism about both his legal advice and workplace demeanor from other lawyers representing Trump, and may be taking a more limited role in dealing with the Smith investigations, according to The Washington Post. 

He testified last year before a Georgia grand jury investigating Trump’s efforts to subvert the election results in the state, including Epshteyn’s alleged role in helping to organize “alternative” slates of Trump electors in battleground states won by Biden.

Epshteyn was also one of the two advisers present in the courtroom with Trump at his criminal arraignment in Manhattan earlier this month, even though he is not officially a member of Trump’s defense team. According to Kaley, Epshteyn’s various shifting roles may well have offered him insight into key decisions taken by Trump and others in his orbit.

“Epshteyn’s knowledge of Mr. Trump’s activities could be quite significant and advance both investigations toward a conclusion of either guilt or innocence,” Kaley said. 

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For instance, Epshteyn was involved in Trump’s legal team’s botched response to a grand jury subpoena last year, when two of the former president’s lawyers drafted a sworn statement saying that a “diligent search” had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago and that no classified materials remained there.  

Two months later, FBI investigators executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago and found 100 additional classified documents.

Epshteyn now becomes at least the fifth Trump lawyer to have formally spoken with Justice Department officials or testified before the grand jury that is now hearing evidence about Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents and obstruction of justice.

Most recently, that grand jury heard testimony from Evan Corcoran, who was told that he could not use his attorney-client privilege to avoid disclosing information about his communications with Trump.

“Before a lawyer can be forced to give up his client’s attorney-client privilege, a court needs to find that there is a likelihood that a crime was committed and that lawyer was used, either wittingly or unwittingly in furtherance of that crime,” William Devaney, a former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey, told Salon earlier this month. 

Smith, the DOJ special counsel, has previously called in Trump lawyers Alina Habba and Christina Bobb to appear before the grand jury.