Editor's Note: (Jennifer Rodgers is a former federal prosecutor, adjunct professor of clinical law at NYU School of Law, lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School and a CNN legal analyst. The opinions expressed here are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.)
(CNN) For those who have been waiting for a sign that the Department of Justice is criminally investigating former President Donald Trump's role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, wait no longer. Reporting from major news outlets that a federal grand jury in Washington, DC has taken testimony from Marc Short and Greg Jacob, former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff and legal counsel, respectively, strongly suggests that the investigation has turned decisively towards Trump and his closest associates.
For months, as the January 6 Select Committee has built and presented a powerful case that Trump committed massive abuses of power and grossly violated his oath of office by scheming to steal the election, one question has kept recurring: where is the Department of Justice in all of this?
After all, only DOJ has the power to bring federal criminal charges, and while the committee's presentations have had different goals than proving guilt of specific crimes beyond a reasonable doubt, the evidence presented publicly to date strongly supports, at minimum, a robust investigation of the actions of the former president for a variety of federal crimes.
Of course, because of DOJ's strict policy of refusing to disclose investigative details or targets, which is designed to protect the integrity of investigations and the reputations of targets who may never be charged, the Justice Department has remained predictably but frustratingly silent about what it is doing and where its investigation is headed, aside from Attorney General Merrick Garland's general assurances that "no person is above the law" and that DOJ will follow the facts and the law as it does its work.
Trump has denied wrongdoing related to the election and January 6.
Despite the lack of explicit guidance from the department itself, we have seen some suggestions in recent months that DOJ's focus has moved closer to Trump and those who worked directly with him in his bid to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Reports of subpoenas to various state officials and some of Trump's legal advisors indicate that DOJ is actively investigating the fraudulent electors schemes, wherein dozens of people in multiple battleground states submitted falsified documents declaring that they were the duly elected electors for their states and that they cast their ballots for Trump.
DOJ also obtained search warrants for the home and devices of Jeffrey Clark, the former DOJ official who supported a scheme to overturn election results in Georgia and sought to be named acting attorney general to carry it out.
Now we know that both Short and Jacob have appeared before the grand jury investigating January 6-related crimes, which is big news for a few reasons.
First, Short and Jacob are important witnesses, because they were high-ranking officials who likely know everything that Pence knows. DOJ will need to hear directly from Pence for the best, non-hearsay evidence of Trump's influence scheme -- and the superior subpoena power DOJ possesses means that prosecutors, unlike the January 6 Committee so far, will be able to make that happen -- but in the meantime, Short and Jacob are two of the best people from whom to collect testimony.
Second, their testimony is the first sign that the grand jury is hearing sworn witness testimony, which usually happens after prosecutors have collected documentary and physical evidence through subpoenas and search warrants, and after investigators and prosecutors have conducted less formal interviews with potential witnesses. That likely means the investigation is progressing and has entered a more advanced stage than was previously known.
The primary planners and implementers of the fraudulent electors' scheme appear to have been some of the lawyers around Trump, such as John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani.
But once the investigation encompasses the part of the scheme that included pressuring then-Vice President Pence to violate the Electoral Count Act by refusing to accept or to improperly delay the counting of the Electoral College votes on January 6, Trump's role becomes much more central.
The January 6 committee has demonstrated that Trump personally, and on multiple occasions, asked, cajoled and demanded that Pence refuse to accept the duly certified election results.
In addition, Trump's public remarks to his supporters at the Ellipse and his tweet blaming Pence as the Capitol was being overrun by the violent mob add to the pile of evidence that the former President was not just personally involved, but was a primary force behind this part of the scheme.
Any criminal investigation by DOJ that includes the pressure campaign against Pence and its goal of interfering with Congress's duties on January 6 must reach Trump.
There is still much we don't know -- like whether Trump will ever face charges for his conduct around the 2020 election and January 6 -- but it now appears almost certain that DOJ is actively investigating that conduct. For our country's sake, this is a good thing, as is the evident professionalism and integrity of the current Justice Department as it does so.