Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed former Trump White House officials for information about the disgraced former autocrat’s November 17, 2020 “termination” of then-Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency chief Chris Krebs in retribution for a statement in which Krebs had called the 2020 election the “most secure in history,” the New York Times reports.

Krebs has already sat for interviews with Smith’s team and is focused on Trump loyalty enforcer Johnny McEntee’s actions in the lead-up to the firing. The Times describes this as trying to get into Trump’s “state of mind,” but that would seem almost a little too simplistic and/or far-removed from the kinds of actual statute violations Smith has reportedly been looking at for Trump, like wire fraud for soliciting donations after he’d already lost and seditious conspiracy for wanting people armed with weapons into the Ellipse during his speech. Lefty journo Marcy Wheeler suggests there’s likely more to it, writing “I think it likely erroneous to imagine that Jack Smith is getting into Chris Krebs’ firing JUST to get to Trump’s mindset. He fired Krebs for doing something his Admin had specifically bought off on. It was a necessary part of the plot,” before bringing up a relevant portion of the transcript of Krebs’ interview with the House January 6th Committee. We honestly can’t nail down what the hell she’s talking about specifically, but her take and the general idea that Smith’s line of inquiry on Krebs is more than simply trying to establish Trump’s “mindset” is still worth noting here.