Reply #437 on: August 18, 2019, 07:44:14 PM
House panel subpoenas Corey Lewandowski, President Donald Trump's former campaign managerThe House Judiciary Committee served a subpoena Thursday to President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, another advance in the congressional investigations of the White House.
The committee also served a subpoena for Rick Dearborn, a former deputy chief of staff for policy at the White House, in its investigation of possible obstruction of justice by Trump, as described in former special counsel Robert Mueller's report. Both are requested to testify at a hearing Sept. 17.
The committee investigating whether to recommend impeachment for Trump has focused on Lewandowski and former White House counsel Don McGahn because they are described in Mueller's report in several episodes of potential obstruction of justice.
“The committee intends to hold hearings and obtain testimony over the coming months as part of its efforts to hold the president accountable as we move forward with our investigation into obstruction, corruption and abuse of power by Trump and his associates," said Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y. "This will help the committee determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment against the president or other Article 1 remedies. No one is above the law.”
Trump has blasted the multiple congressional investigations of him and his administration as a witch hunt and partisan harassment.
Trump retweeted news of Lewandowski potentially campaigning for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire, where the president planned to speak Thursday. Lewandowski said he would get a lot of support if he challenges Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.
"Corey Lewandowski I think would be terrific, if he ran. But I don’t know that he’s going to run," Trump told reporters before boarding his flight to New Hampshire. "If he did it, I think he’d be very formidable."
Mueller made no decision about whether to charge Trump with obstruction because the Justice Department has a policy against charging a sitting president. But House Democrats have continued to investigate.
Mueller's report described Trump asking Lewandowski, who never worked for the administration, to urge then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to limit the Russia inquiry and call it "unfair," according to the report. If Sessions refused to meet with him, Trump told Lewandowski to fire him, according to the report.
Other Trump aides have defied subpoenas. The Judiciary Committee held Attorney General William Barr in contempt for refusing to provide an unredacted version of Mueller's report, and the full House found Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for refusing to provide documents about a citizenship question for the census.
Other House panels have won court rulings for access to Trump's personal financial documents, but the president has appealed those rulings. The Judiciary Committee filed a lawsuit Friday seeking access to grand-jury evidence supporting the Mueller report, which Barr blacked out in the version he provided Congress. And the panel continues to press Trump aides and associates with subpoenas.
On June 19, 2017, Trump met one-on-one in the Oval Office with Lewandowski, a trusted adviser outside the government, and dictated a message to deliver to Sessions, according to the Mueller report. Sessions had recused himself from the Russia investigation because he worked for Trump's campaign, but the president dictated that Sessions should call the inquiry "very unfair" and that Trump had done nothing wrong, the report said.
One month later, in another private meeting July 19, 2017, Trump asked Lewandowski about the status of his message for Sessions to limit the investigation, according to the Mueller report. Lewandowski told the President that the message would be delivered soon. Hours after that meeting, Trump criticized Sessions in an interview with the New York Times, and then issued a series of tweets making it clear that Sessions's job was in jeopardy.
Lewandowski did not want to deliver Trump's message personally, so he asked Dearborn to deliver it to Sessions, according to the Mueller report. Dearborn was uncomfortable with the task and did not follow through, the report said.
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