NYT: Mueller Subpoenas Trump's Business

A new subpoena issued by Robert Mueller may be approaching a "red line" President Trump has warned him not to cross. The New York Times reports that the special counsel has subpoenaed the Trump Organization for documents, including some related to Russia. Trump has previously warned that he didn't want Mueller digging into his family business beyond the Russia investigation, and it wasn't clear if this new inquiry might do that. The newspaper's sources say Mueller has been interviewing witnesses recently about a real estate deal floated in 2015 by a business associate of Trump's. The unnamed associate reportedly emailed Trump's attorney saying he had ties to Vladimir Putin and pushing the idea of building a Trump Tower in Moscow to boost Trump's presidential campaign.

It was apparently more than mere talk: Trump signed a "letter of intent" for the project that same year and spoke to Cohen about it more than once, per the Times. A big deal? The story says the "breadth of the subpoena was not clear," but using a subpoena as opposed to simply requesting the documents is a sign that Mueller "means business," per MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos. Still, the Trump Organization has generally cooperated with similar requests from various congressional panels, and there was no early sign that the organization would try to fight the subpoena. (More Robert Mueller stories.)