The House Judiciary Committee will request documents from Donald Trump Jr. and over 60 other people in the president’s administration, as well as from his businesses, the committee’s chairman Jerry Nadler said on Sunday.
Nadler said in an interview with ABC News’ “This Week” that the documents requests, which are to be made today, are to “begin investigations, to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, about corruption and abuse of power.”
Nadler, who argued it was “very clear” the President obstructed justice, noted that the panel will review documents from the Justice Department, Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, the former chief of staff and former White House counsel Don McGahn.
“We are going to initiate investigations into abuses of power, into corruption and into obstruction of justice. We will do everything we can to get that evidence,” he said, according to Time magazine.
Nadler, who is the chairman of the committee responsible for any impeachment proceedings, said the inquiry was not an impeachment investigation, but rather an effort on Democrats’ part to “protect the rule of law” after President Donald Trump was shielded by Republicans “from any proper accountability” for two years.
Republican Kevin McCarthy accused House Democrats of prejudging Trump solely on a partisan basis, claiming he did nothing wrong and saying that “Nadler decided to impeach the president the day the president won the election.”
“Listen to exactly what he said. He talks about impeachment before he even became chairman and then he says, ‘you’ve got to persuade people to get there’. There’s nothing that the President did wrong.”
The House committee chairman noted that his panel’s investigation “goes far beyond collusion” but it will nonetheless review the special counsel’s report which is expected to be released very soon.
Nadler pointed to a number of instances he believes constitute obstruction of justice on the President’s part, but other Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, stressed it was too early to make judgments about impeachment.
They insisted that special counsel Robert Mueller must first be allowed to finish his work and release his long-awaited report before any judgement is made.
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