Democrats are marching ahead with their investigations into President Donald Trump, his administration and his businesses – cognizant that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report could upend their work.
Still, they’re showing no signs they intend to drop their probes into the President.
The half-dozen Democratic-led House committees investigating the President have prepared to respond to multiple possible scenarios that await Thursday’s release of the redacted Mueller report from Attorney General William Barr. But they’ve also taken numerous steps this week with the Mueller report looming to try to demonstrate their probes are separate from the special counsel’s investigation – and should continue regardless of what the report says.
The House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees ratcheted up their investigation into the President’s finances, delivering subpoenas on Monday to Deutsche Bank and several other major banks. House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings issued a subpoena to Mazars USA, an accounting firm that handled Trump’s financial statements, over questions about whether Trump manipulated his net worth.
And House Ways and Means Chairman, Democratic Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, requested six years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns – using his unique authority as the chairman of the tax-writing committee – a fight that is expected to go to court.
Democrats acknowledge the details of Mueller’s report has the potential to impact the trajectory of their investigations into Trump, as well as set off protracted legal battled with the administration over redactions in the report. The report could open or close lanes of inquiry, whether it’s details on possible collusion that the House Intelligence Committee may tackle or the House Judiciary Committee’s obstruction investigation.
The report could also provide more ammunition to Trump and his Republican allies, who have been calling on Democrats to end their investigations into Trump after Barr’s summary was released and have rejected Democratic requests for documents on multiple fronts. A Monmouth University poll released Wednesday found that 54% of respondents want Congress to “move on to other issues,” compared to 39% who say there are still concerns related to the investigation that Congress should examine.
But for many congressional investigators, the Mueller report will be just a snapshot in a much-broader investigative tapestry. Each committee is expected to look for details that could help them advance their own probes, but many congressional inquiries go beyond questions of Russian collusion or obstruction.
“At the end of the day, the Mueller investigation was principally focused as a criminal investigation. That’s not the purpose of the House Intelligence Committee’s work,” Rep. Denny Heck, a Washington state Democrat on the intelligence panel, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
“There have been legitimate questions, counterintelligence questions, raised as to whether or not the President or people around him have been compromised,” Heck added. “We need to be able to see this material in order to fulfill our oversight responsibilities.”
The Capitol Hill waiting game
Lawmakers have mostly deserted Capitol Hill for the two-week Easter recess, and congressional aides say they’ve prepared as much as they can to game out the potential scenarios that will unfold after the report is released on Thursday.
It’s a similar situation to the end of Mueller’s investigation last month and Barr’s summary of Mueller’s conclusions – but aides say there’s only so much Congress can do while in wait-and-see mode ahead of Thursday.
“We’ve done this drill before,” said one congressional aide involved in the report response.
In the meantime, aides are taking advantage of the perks of Capitol Hill recess while they still can: finally going to long-delayed haircut appointments, stocking up the fridge with food and alcohol and catching up on the “Game of Thrones” recaps. There are coffees and lunches and meetings, all squeezed into the first half of the week.
Much of how Thursday will play out remains in flux. It’s not yet clear in what form Congress will receive the report. The time of day it will arrive is fluid. Aides say they are focused on how to navigate diving into a 400-page report that could have significant redactions, and quickly providing lawmakers guidance on Mueller’s findings.
Mueller’s report could alter investigations
Since Barr’s summary last month stated Mueller’s investigation did not establish a criminal conspiracy and Mueller did not reach a conclusion on obstruction of justice, Trump has claimed total exoneration – and Republicans have gone on offense calling on Democrats to end their investigations.
Republicans are predicting there won’t be new information in Mueller’s report that changes the public’s viewpoint on the Mueller investigation.
“We already know what’s in it,” Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, told CNN on Wednesday. “Bob Mueller has a great team, they’re doing a great investigation, don’t bother the investigation until his investigation came back and said we don’t find anything to charge obstruction, we find no collusion at all and nothing we can charge obstruction with. … When they come and say we can’t make a recommendation, believe me, they know how to make charges, they know how to prosecute very tough cases. If they couldn’t find it, that means they couldn’t do it.”
Even before Mueller’s investigation concluded, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders sought to refocus the Democratic caucus on passing legislation rather than focusing their time and energy on a confrontation with the President – and the prospect of impeachment.
But Democrats, with Pelosi’s backing, have also set the stage for a major fight to obtain the full, unredacted report, arguing that Barr’s summary was woefully inadequate and suggesting that the report will be overly redacted.
“Well, let’s just see what he puts forth. You can’t make a judgment about something you haven’t seen yet. And so we look forward to seeing it,” Pelosi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour during an interview Tuesday in Dublin, Ireland.
While Democrats are pushing forward on their own investigations, the report could have significant implications for several committees.
Congress has had only a limited window into what Mueller examined during the course of the 22-month investigation, and Mueller has spoken to numerous witnesses that haven’t visited Capitol Hill.
The report could affect how the House Judiciary Committee focuses its obstruction investigation, for instance, where the panel has authorized five subpoenas to former White House officials who spoke to Mueller.
The House Judiciary Committee is also leading the House’s efforts to obtain the unredacted report and Mueller’s underlying evidence. Chairman Jerry Nadler has said the authorized subpoena could be issued “very quickly” after Barr releases the redacted report, depending on how much is redacted, and the New York Democrat has made clear he’s willing to go to court to try to pry the material from the Justice Department.
The details from Mueller’s report are also likely to color how House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff proceeds with his investigation, which included examining possible collusion as well as Trump’s financial entanglements when Schiff announced it in February. Like the Judiciary Committee, the intelligence panel is also seeking all of Mueller’s underlying evidence.
Schiff postponed a planned interview with Trump business associate Felix Sater that was scheduled just after Mueller’s investigation concluded, which he said was in order to focus on obtaining the full Mueller report.
But since Barr’s summary was released, Schiff has been under fire from Republicans who have accused him of pushing a false collusion narrative and called for his resignation as chairman of Intelligence.
Schiff has stood by his assertion there is evidence of collusion, even if Mueller determined it didn’t rise to a criminal level. At the same time, Schiff has said he doesn’t need to recreate the special counsel’s work, and the details of Mueller’s findings could guide how much the committee will dive back into the collusion question or stay focused on Trump’s finances.
“We have an independent basis to want the counterintelligence information after all of this began as a counterintelligence investigation to determine, to find out whether the president or people in his campaign had been compromised in any way by a foreign power,” Schiff told CNN last week. “That may or may not be included within the Mueller report.”
CNN’s Manu Raju and Jessica Schneider contributed to this report.
