Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee — which has jurisdiction over impeachments — said Sunday that he believes President Donald Trump obstructed justice and his panel will issue document requests on Monday to dozens of people tied to Trump, including members of his family, business empire, and administration.
“Tomorrow, we will be issuing document requests to over 60 different people and individuals from the White House to the Department of Justice, Donald Trump, Jr., Allen Weisselberg, to begin the investigations to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption, and abuse of power,” Nadler said on ABC News‘ “This Week.”
NEW: House judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler says “tomorrow we will be issuing document requests to over 60 different people and individuals from the White House, to the Dept. of Justice, Donald Trump Jr. … to begin investigations” https://t.co/T5uriFOXYo #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/OYnNw8ELjZ
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) March 3, 2019
While Special Counsel Robert Mueller is very specifically investigating allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any potential collusion with the Russians or efforts to obstruct that probe by members of Trump’s campaign or administration, Nadler said “we have to focus much more broadly on [issues like] abuses of power.”
Regarding the Mueller probe, ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Nadler, “Do you think the president obstructed justice?” The congressman responded: “Yes, I do. It’s very clear that the president obstructed justice.” He pointed to the several instances when Trump has attacked the ongoing investigation as a “witch hunt.”
.@GStephanopoulos: “Do you think the president obstructed justice?”
House judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler: “Yes, I do. It’s very clear that the president obstructed justice” https://t.co/wfNCqwM10y pic.twitter.com/Xj02wV33Lx
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) March 3, 2019
Nadler told Stephanopoulos that “impeachment is a long way down the road” and “we’re far from making decisions” about whether pursue it. However, the committee chairman vowed to “initiate proper investigations” of Trump, which he accused his Republican colleagues of shielding the president from while the GOP had control of the House.
Despite Nadler’s hesitation on impeachment, later in the show, House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) charged, “I think Congressman Nadler decided to impeach the president the day the president won the election.” McCarthy also insisted Trump has not done anything to warrant impeachment.
Their comments came just days after Trump’s former fixer and longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, appeared before the House Oversight Committee to offer a damning testimony in which he said: “Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great… He had no desire or intention to lead this nation — only to market himself and to build his wealth and power.”
Cohen was questioned by Oversight Committee members after delivering his prepared remarks and detailed a long history of fraud and financial crimes. As Nadler summarized in his ABC News interview on Sunday, “What we learned from the Cohen testimony was that he directly implicated the president in various crimes, both while seeking the office of president and while in the White House.”
A particularly illuminating round of questioning by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) garnered widespread praise for the congresswoman as well as alarm over Trump’s alleged lawbreaking. Tax justice groups on Friday demanded that House Democrats use the information revealed in the Cohen hearing to open probes and force the release of Trump’s tax returns, which he has refused to make public.
“The Cohen hearing demonstrated that there is a lot that Donald Trump could be hiding,” said the national advocacy group Tax March. “Democrats must move forward with obtaining and releasing Trump’s tax returns so the American people know the truth.”
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