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WASHINGTON โ Democrats launched a sweeping new probe of President Donald Trump, an aggressive investigation that threatens to shadow the president through the 2020 election season with potentially damaging inquiries into his White House, campaign and family businesses.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said Monday his panel was beginning the probe into possible obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power and is sending document requests to 81 people linked to the president and his associates.
The broad investigation could be setting the stage for an impeachment effort, although Democratic leaders have pledged to investigate all avenues and review special counsel Robert Muellerโs upcoming report before trying any drastic action.
Trump denounced the probe Tuesday, tweeting that Nadler and other Democrats โhave gone stone cold CRAZY. 81 letter sent to innocent people to harass them. They wonโt get ANYTHING done for our Country!โ
Nadler said the document requests, with responses to most due by March 18, are a way to โbegin building the public record.โ
โOver the last several years, President Trump has evaded accountability for his near-daily attacks on our basic legal, ethical, and constitutional rules and norms,โ said Nadler, D-N.Y. โInvestigating these threats to the rule of law is an obligation of Congress and a core function of the House Judiciary Committee.โ
An Indication of the Democratsโ Current Strategy
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called the House probe โa disgraceful and abusive investigation into tired, false allegations.โ
In a statement Monday night, Sanders said: โChairman Nadler and his fellow Democrats have embarked on this fishing expedition because they are terrified that their two-year false narrative of โRussia collusionโ is crumbling. Their intimidation and abuse of American citizens is shameful.โ
Separate congressional probes are already swirling around the president, including an effort announced Monday by three other House Democratic chairmen to obtain information about private conversations between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a letter to the White House and State Department, the House intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Reform panels sent broad requests for details about Trump and Putinโs private meetings by phone and in person. In addition to document requests, the committees are asking to interview interpreters who sat in on meetings, including a one-on-one session in Helsinki last summer.
The State Department pledged to โwork cooperatively with the committees.โ
The new probes signal that now that Democrats hold a majority in the House, Trumpโs legal and political peril is nowhere near over, even as the special counselโs Russia investigation winds down.
They are also an indication of the Democratsโ current strategy โ to flood the administration with oversight requests, keeping Trump and his associates on trial publicly while also playing a long game when it comes to possible impeachment. While some more liberal members of the Democratic caucus would like to see Trump impeached now, Democratic leaders have been more cautious.
Investigating Russian Intervention in the 2016 Election
Trump told reporters after Nadlerโs probe was announced that โI cooperate all the time with everybody.โ
He added: โYou know, the beautiful thing? No collusion. Itโs all a hoax.โ
Mueller is investigating Russian intervention in the 2016 election and whether Trumpโs campaign conspired with Russia. But the House probes go far beyond collusion. The House intelligence panel has announced a separate probe not only into the Russian interference but also Trumpโs foreign financial interests. The Oversight and Reform Committee has launched multiple investigations into all facets of the administration.
The 81 names and entities on the Judiciary Committeeโs list touch all parts of Trumpโs life โ the White House, his businesses, his campaign and the committee that oversaw the transition from campaign to presidency. There are also people connected to Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, including participants in a meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer before the election.
The committee is also asking the FBI, the Justice Department and others for documents related to possible pardons for Trumpโs former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. All three have been charged in special counsel Muellerโs investigation.
In a request sent to the White House, the committee asks for information surrounding former FBI Director James Comeyโs termination, communications with Justice Department officials, the Trump Tower meeting and multiple other matters.
โRecklessly Prejudging the President for Obstructionโ
The panelโs list includes two of the presidentโs sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and many of his current and former close advisers, including Steve Bannon, longtime spokeswoman Hope Hicks, former Press Secretary Sean Spicer and former White House Counsel Don McGahn.
The letters to Hicks and Spicer ask them to turn over any work diaries, journals or โa description of daily events related to your employmentโ by Trump. The committee asked McGahn for documents related to any discussion involving Trump regarding the possibility of firing Mueller around June of 2017 โor any conversation in which President Trump stated, in words or substance, that he wanted the Mueller investigation shut down, restrained or otherwise limited in or around December 2017.โ
The committee seeks from Cohen, Trumpโs former personal lawyer who called Trump a โcon manโ and a โcheatโ in congressional testimony last week, โany audio or video recordingsโ of conversations with Trump or conversations about his presidential campaign.
The list of document requests also includes the National Rifle Association and Trumpโs embattled charitable foundation, which he is shutting down after agreeing to a court-supervised process.
Nadler said in most of the letters that he was limiting the requests to documents that had already been provided to other investigators, an attempt to receive as much as possible in the two-week timeline. The committee said there might be additional requests.
The panel expects some people to produce right away, and others may eventually face subpoenas, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The person declined to be named to discuss the committeeโs internal process.
The top Republican on the committee, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, said Nadler was โrecklessly prejudging the president for obstructionโ and pursuing evidence to back up his conclusion.
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