Nadler announces sweeping document requests, says Trump obstructed justice

2019-03-05 2

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, who would oversee any impeachment proceedings against President Trump, announced that he will submit more than 60 document requests to the White House and Justice Department on Monday -- a barrage that Nadler called the opening salvo in new and wide-ranging investigations.

Without naming Nadler, Trump tweeted late Sunday morning that he was being "persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start - And only because I won the Election!"

Congressional Democrats have repeatedly promised to exercise tight oversight of the Trump administration since securing a majority in the House of Representatives in last November's midterms. But Nadler's comments signaled clearly that Democratic leaders are no longer counting on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's forthcoming report on possible Russia collusion to contain damning evidence against the Trump 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., [Trump Organization CFO] Allen Weisselberg, to begin the investigations to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power,” Nadler, D-NY., said on ABC News' "This Week."

He added that the goal of the probe was "to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power."

Asked by anchor George Stephanopoulos whether he thinks Trump obstructed justice in the Russia investigation, Nadler replied: "Yes, I do. ... It's very clear that the president obstructed justice."

The evidence, Nadler maintained, was that Trump called the Mueller probe a "witch hunt," allegedly "tried to protect [fired national security adviser Michael] Flynn from being investigated by the FBI," and supposedly admitted that he had fired FBI Director James Comey "to stop the Russian thing" in an NBC interview.

In the NBC interview, contrary to Nadler's claim, Trump did not say that he had fired Comey to "stop the Russia thing," and instead insisted he had fired Comey for incompetence. But he acknowledged that the Russia probe was on his mind.

“But regardless of recommendation [from the Justice Department], I was going to fire Comey knowing there was no good time to do it. And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself — I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won," Trump told anchor Lester Holt.

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