Trump Jr subpoenaed as Congress battles White House over Russia report
WASHINGTON, United States — The Russia probe plunged Washington into turmoil Wednesday as Donald Trump's son reportedly was ordered to testify before a Senate panel and the White House refused to release material on investigations into the president.
A day after the top Republican in Congress called the Russia probe "case closed," Trump's conflict with his Democratic opponents escalated to new heights as a House panel voted to hold the nation's Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt for refusing to turn over key documents.
Following a day of drama that included Trump asserting his executive privilege for the first time in his presidency, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee took the surprise step of issuing a subpoena to Donald Trump Jr to testify as part of its investigation into Russian election interference, US media reported.
It was the first known legal summons issued to a member of the president's family to force testimony in the ongoing investigation, and comes after special counsel Robert Mueller declined to accuse Trump's 2016 campaign of criminal conspiracy to collude with the Russians.
Trump Jr, 41, has testified voluntarily in private once to the committee, and was peppered with questions about a June 9, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in New York that he and other campaign officials had with a Russian lawyer who had offered them dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Committee aides would not confirm the subpoena or what they want to discuss with the president's eldest son, who currently helps run the Trump Organization.
Citing a person close to Trump Jr, The Wall Street Journal reported he had offered to answer questions in writing from the committee, and planned to fight the subpoena, which demands he testify in person.
'Constitutional crisis'
The White House meanwhile has been seeking to shield a large swathe of material -- including redacted portions of Mueller's report -- subpoenaed by lawmakers seeking to exert their oversight responsibility.
The rare move to invoke executive privilege came as the House Judiciary Committee took its most substantive step yet against a member of the Trump administration by approving a contempt motion against Barr.
"This was a very grave and momentous step we were forced to take today," committee chairman Jerry Nadler said after the party-line vote.
Nadler said the contempt citation will proceed "rapidly" for a full House vote but did not offer a timeline.
Nadler accused Trump and the White House of stonewalling by preventing America's congressional representatives from conducting oversight of the executive branch.
"It's an attack on the essence of our democracy," Nadler said. "We are now in a constitutional crisis."
The Department of Justice swiftly shot back, branding the contempt vote "inappropriate political theatrics."
Hours earlier, Trump made clear he would assert his executive privilege to keep Mueller's full report under wraps.
"Neither the White House nor Attorney General Barr will comply with Chairman Nadler's unlawful and reckless demands," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said.
Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd stressed that Trump had moved to keep "the entirety of the subpoenaed materials" from the eyes of Congress.
Nadler warned that such action "represents a clear escalation in the Trump administration's blanket defiance of Congress's constitutionally mandated duties."
Democrats have struggled with their battle plan in the wake of the Mueller report. Some have called for impeachment proceedings against Trump, while others stress the need to refocus on issues affecting everyday Americans ahead of the 2020 election.
The administration has been resolute in accusing Democrats of seeking to tear down the president.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Trump's nemesis in Congress, has refrained from calling for his impeachment.
But on Wednesday she voiced support for the contempt move, and delivered a stinging message about the White House refusal to release the unredacted report, a document that Trump claimed exonerated him of wrongdoing.
"Is this what it looks like when you have nothing to hide?" Pelosi tweeted.
For several hours in the tense judiciary hearing, lawmakers traded barbs about Barr's brazen protection of the president and the calculated effort by Democrats to punish him and gain access to key material.
Trump took to Twitter to rail about Mueller's two-year investigation.
"TREASONOUS HOAX!" Trump boomed, a reference to a favorite complaint that the probe was an unwarranted political hit job by his opponents.
Barr defied a subpoena to turn over a complete copy of Mueller's report and the underlying evidence, and last week refused to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.
The panel approved the 27-page contempt citation in which Nadler wrote that even the redacted report "offers disturbing evidence and analysis that President Trump engaged in obstruction of justice at the highest levels."
The Justice Department says it has given House Republicans new classified information related to the Russia investigation after lawmakers had threatened to hold officials in contempt of Congress or even impeach them.
A spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan says Saturday that the department has partially complied with subpoenas from the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees after officials turned over more than a thousand new documents this week.
House Republicans had given the Justice Department and FBI a Friday deadline for all documents, most of which are related to the origins of the FBI's Russia investigation and the handling of its probe into Democrat Hillary Clinton's emails. — AP
Documents released by the US Department of Justice indicate that a top advisor to then-candidate Donald Trump said as early as the summer of 2016 that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind a hack of Democratic party emails.
Trump and his surrogates have suggested that Kiev hacked Democratic National Committee servers and planted evidence to frame Russia, as a way of undermining the legitimacy of the US leader's election.
Trump has pressured Ukraine's president to investigate that debunked conspiracy theory as well as his election rival Joe Biden -- a move at the crux of an impeachment investigation against him in the House of Representatives. — AFP
Democrats accuses President Donald Trump on Friday of using the US Justice Department as a political tool after it opened a criminal probe into its own handling of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
News of the inquiry, which implied wrongdoing by justice officials in the previous administration of Barack Obama, leaked late Thursday as the White House struggled to push back against a Democratic-led impeachment investigation targeting the Republican president.
The inquiry could further muddy the political waters in Washington, raising questions about the now-ended Russia investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that saw 34 individuals indicted and eight convictions, including top members of Trump's 2016 election team. — AFP
The Justice Department has opened a criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation that examined whether Donald Trump colluded with Moscow during the 2016 presidential election, US media report.
Justice Department officials have switched an administrative review of the investigation, overseen by Attorney General William Barr, to a criminal inquiry, The New York Times said, citing two sources close to the matter.
The move gives lead prosecutor John Durham, the US attorney for Connecticut, the power convene a grand jury, file criminal charges and issue subpoenas for witness testimony and documents. — AFP
Australia's prime minister plays down the significance of a call from Donald Trump as "brief and uneventful", despite mounting controversy over a politically fraught offer to help the US president.
Scott Morrison says Trump had simply asked him to establish "a point of contact" within Australia's government for an investigation that the US president hopes will discredit findings that Russia helped his 2016 election campaign.
Morrison says he was "happy" to fulfil Trump's request on the basis that the country's ambassador to the United States, Joe Hockey, had already offered Australia's assistance in the investigation back in May. — AFP
The Washington Post reports that US President Donald Trump told Russia's foreign minister and ambassador that he was unconcerned about their country's interference in the 2016 elections.
Trump made the previously unreported comments during the same May 2017 Oval Office meeting in which he famously revealed highly classified information on the Islamic State group.
During the conversation he reportedly told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that he was not bothered by their country's meddling because the United States did the same in other countries, according to three former officials who requested anonymity. — AFP
- Latest
- Trending
