House Democrats Launch Sweeping Investigation Into Potential Crimes by Trump

President Donald Trump speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, 2019.Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

In what could prove a major step toward initiating impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, House Democrats on Monday launched a broad probe into alleged abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and corruption by the president. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler requested documents from 81 individuals and entities, including the Trump Organization, the president’s family members and business associates, current and former White House aides, and many others. The new probe is the latest in a series of new investigative steps by House committees in the wake of testimony last week by Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who accused the president of multiple crimes.

The judiciary committee’s action is significant because the panel has responsibility for any eventual effort to impeach Trump. Nadler, like other senior Democrats, says it’s too early to discuss impeachment. He argues that even though Trump has already been implicated in potentially impeachable offenses, including extensive campaign finance violations detailed by Cohen, Democrats should not attempt to impeach Trump without Republican support, since doing so would be futile and might hurt Democrats politically. Speaking Sunday on ABC’s This Week, Nadler described the committee’s probe as an attempt to “lay out for the American people” the extent of Trump’s malfeasance. He said Congress should not rely on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which is focused on Trump campaign contacts with Russia. “We have to focus much more broadly on abuses of power,” Nadler said.

In a call with reporters Monday, a judiciary committee lawyer said the panel’s investigation into abuses of power by the president will cover Trump’s attacks on the media and federal judges and his public dangling of pardons for potential witnesses against him. Each of these acts “may not rise to the level of a crime under federal law, but it is nevertheless a gross abuse of power,” the attorney said.

The committee wants documents from a broad group. It is seeking material from Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Jared Kushner, the FBI, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and former White House Counsel Don McGahn that may fuel an obstruction of justice case against Trump. The panel also wants documents from longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone, who was recently indicted for lying to Congress; conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi; and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The requests blow past Trump’s efforts to restrict investigators from looking into his personal business. The committee seeks documents from Rhonna Graff, Trump’s longtime personal secretary, and other Trump Organization figures. 

The document requests suggest the committee has not yet discovered new information on Trump-connected scandals but that it aims to build its own record on alleged crimes and abuses of power by the president and his advisers. “We have sent these document requests in order to begin building the public record,” Nadler said Monday. The committee lawyer said that in most cases the recipients can satisfy the document requests by sharing records they have already handed over to other investigators, including the special counsel’s office. He said the panel will subpoena documents within weeks if recipients refuse to provide them.

Here is the list of document requests the committee sent: