WASHINGTON (AP) — Emboldened by their new majority, Democrats are undertaking several broad new investigations into President Donald Trump and setting the stage for a post-Robert Mueller world.
Whether the special counsel’s final Russia report is damning of the president or not, Democrats in charge of a half-dozen House committees are planning to flood the administration with document requests, calls for testimony and even subpoenas if necessary. The investigations reach far beyond Mueller’s focus of Russian interference and collusion in the 2016 campaign.
The Democratic efforts increased this past week after Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, appeared before two House committees and a Senate committee. In his public testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cohen called the president a “con man” and a “cheat” and gave Democrats several new leads for inquiry.
The stepped-up oversight could eventually lead to, or even serve in place of, impeachment proceedings. While many liberal members of the Democratic caucus think impeachment is warranted, Democratic leaders have been cautious, saying they first want to investigate.
A look at the status of some of the House investigations:
HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE
The committee is reopening and expanding an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election that the Republican majority closed last year. At that time, Republicans said, over Democratic objections, that there was no evidence to show that Trump’s campaign colluded or conspired with Russia. The top Democrat on the committee then, California Rep. Adam Schiff, said Republicans had prematurely closed the matter without interviewing key witnesses and demanding important documents.
Schiff is now chairman, and last month he announced a broad new investigation looking not only at Russian interference but also at Trump’s foreign financial interests. Schiff said the investigation will include “the scope and scale” of Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election, the “extent of any links and/or coordination” between Russians and Trump’s associates, whether foreign actors have sought to hold leverage over Trump or his family and associates, and whether anyone has sought to obstruct any of the relevant investigations.
The committee interviewed Cohen in private on Thursday and will finish the interview this coming Wednesday. After Cohen left, Schiff announced that the committee will hold an open hearing later this month with Felix Sater, a Russia-born executive who worked with Cohen on an ultimately unsuccessful deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Schiff said told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that there are “any number of witnesses that can shed light on whether America’s national security is compromised because the president has been pursuing financial interests with the Russians.”
