Democratic lawmakers are requesting documents from more than 60 people including Administration officials and Trump’s family members as they continue to search for evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Moscow.
There are now six House committees investigating more than 80 topics related to Trump including his 2016 presidential campaign, his tax returns, his foreign financial interests, his family businesses, his travel ban, and his payment to Stormy Daniels.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) says it is “very clear” Trump obstructed justice and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) insists “there is direct evidence” of collusion with Moscow.
Trump shot back against these claims Sunday, accusing Democrats of “presidential harassment” and claiming he is “an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted, and corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal and should never have been allowed to start.”
The partisan bickering follows a series of explosive testimonies from Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, who recently told lawmakers:
- Trump had previous knowledge about WikiLeaks’ plans to release emails hacked from the DNC
- Trump participated in a scheme to silence women who claimed to have had affairs with him
- Trump asked Cohen to mislead Congress in regards to the Trump Tower Moscow project
Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress during a previous testimony and said he had “suspicions” about collusion between Trump aides and Russia.
Cohen’s claims give Democrats ammunition to continue their exhaustive probes into every aspect of Trump’s life and to push for impeachment.
“We are going to initiate investigations into abuses of power, into corruption, and into obstruction of justice,” said Nadler, whose committee would oversee impeachment proceedings.
“We have to do the investigations and get all this,” he added. “We do not now have the evidence sorted out and everything to do an impeachment. Before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American public that it ought to happen.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Sunday called Nadler out on his efforts to impeach Trump without evidence of wrongdoing:
“I think Congressman Nadler decided to impeach the president the day the president won the election,” said McCarthy. “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.”
In his defense, Nadler claimed Democrats are ‘just doing their job after the GOP shielded Trump from accountability for two years.’
In the meantime, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has advised lawmakers to keep quiet about impeachment until Robert Mueller finishes his Russia investigation.
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Here’s what’s really going on: The Democrats are taking advantage of their new majority in the House to ramp up investigations in an attempt to destroy Trump. This has been expected and is starting in earnest now that people are starting to think about the 2020 elections; but as Trump suggested on Sunday, without evidence of crimes the Dems’ behavior is pure harassment.