The Department of Justice issued subpoenas for Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner and this indicates special counsel Jack Smith is finally nearing the end of his investigation into former President Donald Trump.

Smith asked Trump’s eldest daughter and son-in-law to speak this week before a federal grand jury about the former president’s role in the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Newsweek reports.

During an interview with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, legal analyst Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, revealed that subpoenaing such high-level witnesses within Trump’s inner circle is an “end-game” move for Smith.

“Jack Smith is not messing around,” Litman said. “Smith’s view is everybody should be in the grand jury, the people deserve that, but often in the DOJ you would handle this with kid gloves.”

Litman also said the two subpoenas give him an idea of where Smith is going with this and where he’s been “in the sense that this is an end-game move.”

Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November to head the investigation into Trump’s alleged efforts to upend the 2020 presidential election, including conducting a pressure campaign against state election officials and a scheme to send in fake electors to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory.

Then there’s Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left office, and Smith is poring over that as well as any efforts the former president and his legal team may have taken to obstruct the federal government’s retrieval of the documents.

Smith was put on the case after Trump announced he was running for president in 2024. For the DOJ this was an effort to ensure that there were no conflicts of interest. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in either of the cases.

Nick Akerman, former assistant special Watergate prosecutor and former assistant U.S. attorney for New York’s Southern District told Newsweek Thursday that “we don’t really know” how far along the investigation is — or isn’t.

He pointed out that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were at the White House in the days leading up to the insurrection.

“There is good reason to believe that they would have knowledge about any of the myriad schemes Donald Trump was coming up with to thwart the election results,” he said.

Having these two testify is important, Akerman noted. If Trump does go to trial, he may call the couple as witnesses. Obviously, the DOJ needs to know what they will or won’t say and “lock in their stories,” in order to neutralize them as defense witnesses, he said.

And because Jared and Ivanka have appeared before the January 6 committee, they have waived their executive privilege, Akerman added.

“They’re really key witnesses from both standpoints,” he said. “And the bottom line is you cannot decide whether or not to indict or to indict without having taken their testimony and locked it in.”

It looks, however, like this could still drag on for a while. Akerman said that before any indictments can come, Smith needs to hear from other key witnesses in Trump’s inner orbit. This includes former Vice President Mike Pence, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and other Trump allies who were inside the Willard Hotel war room right before January 6. This includes Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon.

And this is definitely for a good reason because Bannon et al likely knew more than what Trump’s White House staff knew about his January 6 plans.

It’s also reported that Smith has subpoenaed Meadows, Pence, and former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien. Pence is still saying he intends to fight the subpoena, telling reporters after a speech in Iowa that it is “unconstitutional and unprecedented.”

So maybe this slow, plodding series of investigations is finally going somewhere. I’m skeptical and not going to hold my breath.

"[Jack Smith's] the guy that has the power… this is… another indication, we are in the end game. Why does he want Ivanka and Jared? They were in the center of things, especially Ivanka on January 6th" – @harrylitman w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/HWrzsIdV3a

— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) February 22, 2023