What will happen to the House member who walked in lockstep with Donald Trump? After all, the Democrats take their places as the chairs of all the committees on January 3. Not a moment later, they will come out ready to box, and this is one of the first things they plan to do.
Surprising as it sounds, the Republicans have withheld testimony from their hearings and refused to hand that vital information over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. We are talking about testimony before the House Intelligence Committee from first son-in-law Jared Kushner, former aides Hope Hicks, Keith Schiller, Donald Trump Jr., and two of the presidents “former” advisers Corey Lewandowski and the trickster, Roger Stone.
As of this time, the outgoing chair, Devin Nunes (R-CA) has all of the transcripts in the Congressional basement under lock and key. According to Reuters‘ sources, House Dems will immediately send those transcripts over to Mueller’s people. The special council has been investigating Russia’s attack on the 2016 presidential elections and the Trump’s campaign conspiracy with Moscow.
The former personal attorney and self-described fixer for Trump pled guilty to lying to two government committees. In making his amends. Michael Cohen said he lied about the then-candidate’s involvement with a long dreamed of Trump skyscraper in Moscow. The project did not halt until well into the summer of 2016.
Democrats hoped to have a number of the Trump people back to testify. Nunes refused to have them return for followup questions. Early this fall, the Democrats suggested sending the full transcripts over to Mueller, and Nunes sent 53 transcripts to the DNI (Director National Intelligence) for declassification, which was the first step in moving them to the special counsel.
Only three interview transcripts have made it over to Mueller, thus far. Reuters said that those included:
‘(The) former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, private military contractor Erik Prince, and Glenn Simpson, the founder of a research firm which hired a former British spy to produce a controversial dossier on alleged links between Trump and Russia.’
Spokesperson for the committee’s incoming Democratic chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-MA ), said that if the committee sent Mueller the full transcription, it did not mean that they were suggesting his team bring criminal charges, necessarily:
‘We do not foreclose the possibility of making a referral, but all we have decided is to provide the Special Counsel with the transcripts so that his team can evaluate them for evidence as well as potential perjury.’
In public statements, Schiff identified Roger Stone as a person who might have lied to the committee. Sources for Reuters said that Trump’s friend and adviser, Roger Stone, testified, so his transcripts, along with the others’ transcripts, will go immediately to Mueller. At a minimum, the special council will search for lies to the committee, a federal offense.
Stone and Trump frequently talked in the middle of the night. Often, Trump used others’ phones to keep the calls off of the government’s radar. According to Stone’s attorney, Grant Smith, Stone’s testimony was “entirely accurate.” Mueller will find some interesting Stone testimony about the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, too.
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
