Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, who are to take control of the chamber in January, intend to investigate President Donald Trump’s involvement in the payments made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels and another woman during the 2016 presidential campaign, a senior Democratic aide on the committee said.
The aide added that Democratic members on the committee have already started looking into Trump’s role in the payments. The President has denied both being involved with the women and knowing about the hush money payments, although he was briefed on nearly every step of the payments made by his former lawyer Michael Cohen.
The Democratic aide also said the Oversight Committee began investigating the matter months ago, but the information it requested from the Trump organization was not provided because they were in the minority, which they expect to change now that they are in the majority. President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said in a statement to ABC News the effort was “useless.”
“Since the payments were not campaign contributions based on the FEC rulings it would be as useless as Mueller’s absurd investigation of Russian collusion which has established that the only Russian involvement was collusion with Hillary and DNC to produce fraudulent Steele dossier,” he said in the statement.
He added that what was called a “hush money payment” was in fact just a settlement payment and the amounts paid to the two women, $130,000 and $150,000, mean “the case was considered as harassment, not as a serious claim.”
Both Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed to have had a months-long affair with Trump, received the payments during the presidential campaign in 2016, but Trump has insisted the story of his affair with the model was “an old story that is just more fake news.”
In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts related to illegal campaign contributions “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” – a reference to Trump.
New York Representative Jerry Nadler noted on Sunday that if the President was found to have violated campaign finance laws with the payments it “might very well be an impeachable offense.”
“Well, it may be an impeachable offense if it goes to the question of the President procuring his office through corrupt means,” Nadler said. “You’d have to see … how good the proof of that is, and secondly, what else there is, because the fact that an impeachable offense is committed, has been committed, does not mean necessarily there ought to be an impeachment.”
Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee similarly said last week that they planned to review Trump’s tax filings, to which he responded, “I don’t care. They can do whatever they want and I can do whatever I want.”
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