The new subpoena of Roger Stone's former assistant offers a snapshot of the ongoing investigation

A former assistant to the political leader, Roger Stone, entrusted to a grand jury all his SMS with Stone from October 2016 to March 2017, as well as his written agenda, while he was at the National Convention Republican of 2016.

The assistant, Andrew Miller, handed over the documents in response to a federal grand jury summons after his two-hour testimony last Friday in the body, according to communications between Miller's lawyer and the government that were reviewed by POLITICO.

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The subpoena gives an overview of the government's ongoing investigation into Stone, an informal adviser to the Trump campaign, charged in January for lying to Congress and to the FBI about his relationship with WikiLeaks during the summer. election of 2016. He has pleaded not guilty and is waiting for the trial scheduled for November.

Under Justice policy and decisions, grand juries are not meant to be used to investigate a criminal case that has already begun, although they may be used to add new charges or to charge new accused.

However, it is still unclear what additional crimes the D.C. prosecutors are investigating. Add to the plot the fact that Miller testified before a new grand jury rather than the one summoned by Mueller that Miller was initially fighting and that he was found guilty of contempt of court.

In e-mail communications obtained by POLITICO, Miller's volunteer lawyer, Paul Kamenar of the National Legal Policy Center, requested an explanation from US Attorney General Michael Marando.

"I simply noted that the original grand jury before which my client had been summoned was 17 years old and that the contempt order was for not appearing before that one," Kamenar wrote. to Marando. "Although you have the power to call a witness in front of other large juries, as you claim, I believe, as I asked at last week's hearing that a new question relating to the subpoena would have clarified the situation. "

Marando only replied that prosecutors were considering "seeking immediate contempt" before the judge if Miller did not plan to comply with the new grand jury summons.

Grant Smith, a lawyer for Stone, said, "We learned from the reports that Mr. Miller had recently appeared before the Grand Jury. We are not aware of anything that could have been asked of Mr. Miller or this one. "

The new summons suggests that the grand jury wants to know more about Stone's involvement in the Republican convention – where he gave speeches and chatted with reporters – and about his conversations with one of his collaborators The most trustworthy during a period including the release of Hillary by WikiLeaks The Clinton campaign president's e-mails, John Podesta, the presidential transition and the inauguration of Trump.

Mueller's team took a close look at the activities of the Trump campaign at the convention after learning that it had relaxed an amendment to the Republican platform to be more favorable to Russia. In addition, during the Republican convention, Russian hackers sent WikiLeaks a file containing instructions on how to download stolen documents from the Democratic National Committee. WikiLeaks posted internal emails on July 22, 2016, the last day of the convention and just before the start of the Democratic National Convention.