March 4, 2019

House Democrats Launch Sweeping Investigation Into Potential Crimes by Trump

The probe may be an initial step toward impeachment.

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

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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:

  1. Alan Garten (letter, document requests) 
  2. Alexander Nix (letter, document requests) 
  3. Allen Weisselberg (letter, document requests) 
  4. American Media Inc. (letter, document requests)
  5. Anatoli Samochornov (letter, document requests)
  6. Andrew Intrater (letter, document requests)
  7. Annie Donaldson (letter, document requests)
  8. Brad Parscale (letter, document requests)
  9. Brittany Kaiser (letter, document requests)
  10. Cambridge Analytica (letter, document requests) 
  11. Carter Page (letter, document requests)
  12. Columbus Nova (letter, document requests)
  13. Concord Management and Consulting (letter, document requests)
  14. Corey Lewandowski (letter, document requests)
  15. David Pecker (letter, document requests)
  16. Department of Justice (letter, document requests)
  17. Don McGahn (letter, document requests) 
  18. Donald J Trump Revocable Trust (letter, document requests) 
  19. Donald Trump Jr. (letter, document requests) 
  20. Dylan Howard (letter, document requests)
  21. Eric Trump (letter, document requests)
  22. Erik Prince (letter, document requests)
  23. FBI (letter, document requests)
  24. Felix Sater (letter, document requests)
  25. Flynn Intel Group (letter, document requests)
  26. General Services Administration (letter, document requests)
  27. George Nader (letter, document requests)
  28. George Papadopoulos (letter, document requests)
  29. Hope Hicks (letter, document requests)
  30. Irakly Kaveladze (letter, document requests)
  31. Jared Kushner (letter, document requests)
  32. Jason Maloni (letter, document requests)
  33. Jay Sekulow (letter, document requests)
  34. Jeff Sessions (letter, document requests)
  35. Jerome Corsi (letter, document requests)
  36. John Szobocsan (letter, document requests)
  37. Julian Assange (letter, document requests)
  38. Julian David Wheatland (letter, document requests)
  39. Keith Davidson (letter, document requests)
  40. KT McFarland (letter, document requests)
  41. Mark Corallo (letter, document requests)
  42. Matt Tait (letter, document requests)
  43. Matthew Calamari (letter, document requests)
  44. Michael Caputo (letter, document requests)
  45. Michael Cohen (letter, document requests)
  46. Michael Flynn (letter, document requests)
  47. Michael Flynn Jr. (letter, document requests)
  48. Paul Erickson (letter, document requests)
  49. Paul Manafort (letter, document requests)
  50. Peter Smith (Estate) (letter, document requests)
  51. Randy Credico (letter, document requests)
  52. Reince Priebus (letter, document requests)
  53. Rhona Graff (letter, document requests)
  54. Rinat Akhmetshin (letter, document requests)
  55. Rob Goldstone (letter, document requests)
  56. Roger Stone (letter, document requests)
  57. Ronald Lieberman (letter, document requests)
  58. Sam Nunberg (letter, document requests)
  59. SCL Group Limited (letter, document requests)
  60. Sean Spicer (letter, document requests)
  61. Sheri Dillon (letter, document requests)
  62. Stefan Passantino (letter, document requests)
  63. Steve Bannon (letter, document requests)
  64. Ted Malloch (letter, document requests)
  65. The White House (letter, document requests)
  66. Trump campaign (letter, document requests)
  67. Trump Foundation (letter, document requests)
  68. Trump Organization (letter, document requests)
  69. Trump transition (letter, document requests)
  70. Viktor Vekselberg (letter, document requests)
  71. WikiLeaks (letter, document requests)
  72. 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee (letter, document requests) 
  73. Christopher Bancroft Burnham (letter, document requests)
  74. Frontier Services Group (letter, document requests)
  75. J.D. Gordon (letter, document requests)
  76. Kushner Companies (letter, document requests)
  77. National Rifle Association (letter, document requests)
  78. Rick Gates (letter, document requests)
  79. Tom Barrack (letter, document requests)
  80. Tom Bossert (letter, document requests)
  81. Tony Fabrizio (letter, document requests)

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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