Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed last year by Attorney General Merrick Garland to lead two investigations into former President Donald Trump, his alleged retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, and his alleged role in a scheme to overturn the 2020 election results and the related Jan. 6 Capitol riot in 2021.

A recent report indicates that Special Counsel Smith has issued a subpoena for grand jury testimony from Ivanka Trump, the former president's eldest daughter, in relation to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according to The Hill.

Also subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury on the same matter was her husband, Jared Kushner, the former president's son-in-law.

Subpoenas for testimony issued

That news was first reported on Wednesday by The New York Times, which cited two unnamed individuals described as having been "briefed on the matter" about the special counsel's subpoenas for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

The outlet asserted that the subpoenas were a sign that Special Counsel Smith was probing "deeply into Mr. Trump’s inner circle" and that "no potential high-level witness is off limits" in the search for evidence of possible criminal wrongdoing, whether by Trump himself or others around him.

Given that both Ivanka and Jared served as special White House advisers to the former president, it is possible that Trump could attempt to invoke executive privilege as a legal defense against the subpoenas.

Notably, however, Trump did not invoke executive privilege to stop either his daughter or son-in-law from testifying last year before the special House committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Where were Ivanka and Jared on Jan. 6?

The Times noted that on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, Ivanka Trump was in the Oval Office with her father at the time that he was alleged to have called then-Vice President Mike Pence to urge him to reject or delay the certification of Electoral College votes from the several states in which the election's outcome was disputed.

Pence, of course, did no such thing later that afternoon as he served in the vice president's ceremonial role as president of the Senate and overseer of the joint session of Congress to certify President Joe Biden's electoral victory.

The former president's daughter had also accompanied him to his rally speech at the Ellipse that was delivered just prior to a mob of his supporters marching toward and surrounding the Capitol building, with some growing violent toward law enforcement, gaining entry into the building, and issuing threats toward certain elected officials, including the vice president, that prompted a several hours delay of the certification.

As for Kushner, he had just returned that day from a trip to the Middle East and went straight to the White House, according to the Times, where he and Ivanka reportedly urged Trump to issue statements calling for the rioters to be peaceful and to go home.

Special Counsel probe possibly "ramping up" to a conclusion

The Hill noted that the report from The Times appeared to bolster its own recent separate reporting that Special Counsel Smith's probe into the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was "ramping up" and potentially drawing near to a conclusion.

Just a week or so prior to the subpoenas for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Smith had similarly subpoenaed both former Vice President Pence and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in relation to the Jan. 6 investigation.

The outlet suggested that the subpoenas of such "high-level targets" implied that the special counsel's work, at least with regard to the Capitol riot, had reached a "late-stage" and was "winding down."

Of course, gathering sufficient evidence of Trump's alleged criminal culpability for the Jan. 6 riotous violence is a tall order, and despite the obvious and public falling out between Trump and Pence, the former vice president has indicated that he will likely fight Smith's subpoena, not by claiming executive privilege but rather through the "novel legal strategy" of invoking the protections of the Constitution's” speech and debate" clause for members of Congress in light of his role as presiding officer of the Senate.

Trump likely to invoke executive privilege all around

The Hill further reported that while former VP Pence may try to use that "novel" defense against the special counsel's subpoena to avoid testifying, former President Trump will likely also attempt to invoke the more standard executive privilege to block the subpoenas of Pence and former Chief of Staff Meadows, as he may well also do for his daughter and son-in-law.

It should be noted that none of the parties named in these stories responded to requests for comment or confirmation from either The Times or The Hill.