The House Judiciary panel is requesting documents from more than 80 people or entities in Trump’s orbit, including his adult sons.
A key House committee with the power to impeach President Donald Trump kicked off a sweeping new investigation on Monday with document demands from the White House, Trump’s namesake company, charity, transition team, inauguration and 2016 campaign, as well as several longtime associates and the president’s two adult sons.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, opened his much-anticipated probe with letters to 81 individuals, companies and government entities, seeking a wide range of materials that go to the heart of allegations against the president — including abuses of power, corruption, and obstruction of justice.
“This is a critical time for our nation,” Nadler wrote to each recipient, all of which his staff noted have already been ensnared in investigations by special counsel Robert Mueller or other federal prosecutors. “President Trump and his administration face wide-ranging allegations of misconduct that strike at the heart of our constitutional order.”
By initiating the wide-ranging demand for documents, the Judiciary Committee signaled it is creating its own insurance policy in the event that all of Mueller’s findings are not made public and it finds the kinds of evidence that would be grounds for removing Trump from office. Public hearings and closed-door interviews based off the materials will begin in a matter of weeks, a senior Democratic committee lawyer said.
The list of letter recipients reads like a who’s who of people in and around the president’s orbit — notably all of Trump’s senior 2016 campaign leaders, including Corey Lewandowski, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner and Brad Parscale, the campaign manager for Trump’s 2020 re-election effort.
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All recipients have until March 18 to comply with the document requests, and the committee plans to issue subpoenas if necessary within several additional weeks in order to force compliance, the Democratic committee counsel said. Many of the requests are seeking the same materials already turned over in the myriad ongoing probes, which Nadler’s staff said should help to avoid any battles with competing investigators and the Trump White House over claims of executive privilege.
The document request was put together with sign-off from prosecutors in Mueller’s office and the Southern District of New York, the Democratic counsel said. It also won’t be the only document request — Nadler’s staff said another round of letters would be going out soon and cautioned against reading into why some people didn’t receive letters on Monday.
Nadler views his effort as a complement to Mueller’s investigation, which is examining Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, potential collusion between Trump associates and Russian operatives, and obstruction of justice. It’s also designed as a backstop if the special counsel’s work doesn’t become public. In his Senate confirmation hearing in January, Attorney General William Barr did not pledge to release Mueller’s entire final report. Further complicating efforts to release investigative materials about Trump is the longstanding Justice Department policy dating to Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal that states a sitting president cannot be indicted.
Democrats aren’t just limiting themselves to obstruction of justice allegations tied to the Russia probe. The committee also plans to examine potential violations of the Emoluments clause of the Constitution, which prohibits a president from personally enriching himself while in office, as well as witness intimidation and the dangling of pardons to senior Trump officials caught up in federal investigators’ crosshairs.
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- Discussion
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Mueller’s office and SDNY signed off on Nadler's letters. It also won’t be the only doc requests – Nadler's aides said more would be going out soon & cautioned against reading into why some people didn’t get letters on Monday. https://t.co/c6BHZK2C5a @politico
— Darren Samuelsohn (@dsamuelsohn) March 4, 2019
Go for it, guys.
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