Forget special counsel Robert Mueller. Democrats are now increasingly confident that there is enough evidence that President Trump committed Obstruction of Justice, which could eventually lead to his impeachment.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said today that he plans to request documents from scores of people and organizations connected to President Trump as part of an inquiry.
The demands from Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) are the latest indication that Democrats have kicked their scrutiny of Trump into high gear.
Speaking on ABC News’s “This Week,” Nadler said his panel’s more than 60 targets include the president’s son Donald Trump Jr.; Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization; and the Justice Department.
The materials, the congressman said, would be used “to begin investigations to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power.”
Nadler said he has made no determination on whether to proceed with impeachment.
But he said he was personally convinced that Trump has obstructed justice — an offense that was included in the impeachment articles passed in the House against both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
Trump, taking to Twitter after Nadler’s comments, lashed out anew at “more than two years of Presidential Harassment.”
After more than two years of Presidential Harassment, the only things that have been proven is that Democrats and other broke the law. The hostile Cohen testimony, given by a liar to reduce his prison time, proved no Collusion! His just written book manuscript showed what he…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2019
Clinton, who was impeached by the GOP majority in the House in 1998, often complained about harassment from his political opponents and the media as well.
Meanwhile, several other House committees are digging aggressively into Trump, his 2016 campaign, his businesses and his associates.
Nadler’s announcement came just days after the House Oversight and Reform Committee publicly questioned former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen, who implicated Trump in several serious crimes, including potential campaign finance violations connected to hush-money payoffs to women and possible fraud charges concerning falsified documents provided to banks and insurance companies.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), the oversight panel’s chairman, said last week that he, too, was interested in securing testimony from Trump’s children and Weisselberg, who has overseen the financial details of Trump’s business ventures for decades.
Also last week, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) asked his staff to begin preparing a request for Trump’s past tax returns to be submitted to the Treasury Department in the coming weeks.
The House intelligence and financial services committees also are amid probes that could touch Trump personally.
Nadler’s probe, however, is unique: Only the Judiciary Committee can recommend the president’s impeachment — a politically explosive move that has been handled carefully by House Democratic leaders even as more and more rank-and-file Democrats say Trump has committed impeachable offenses.
A person who was familiar with the pending document requests but was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter said requests dealing with potential obstruction of justice would focus on Trump’s alleged efforts to remove perceived enemies at the Justice Department, including former FBI Director James B. Comey, and install more loyal replacements.
The requests would also look at potential abuses of power, the person said, including the possible dangling of pardons and witness tampering, as well as Trump’s broader attacks on the entities investigating him and the press.
The Judiciary Committee probe, as described by Nadler, would supplement the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III focused on ties between Russia and Trump’s business and campaign.
Mueller is widely thought to be in the closing stages of his investigation, with Justice Department officials expecting to receive his report by the end of the month.