Senate Intelligence Committee list of interviewees expands amid Trump Jr. email controversy
The committee has not confirmed that he has been invited to testify.
— -- The Senate Intelligence Committee has begun interviewing White House and Trump campaign staffers for its Russia investigation but it is already expanding its roster of interviewees amid revelations that Donald Trump Jr. met during the campaign with a Russian lawyer purporting to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
“It was in black and white that it was part of a Russian government effort to help Trump discredit Clinton,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said of the meetings, adding that he was sure Trump Jr. would come before the panel, as well as the other Trump officials who attended the meeting, including then-campaign manager Paul Manafort and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner.
While the committee has not confirmed that they have invited or plan to invite Trump Jr. to testify, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the number-two Senate Republican and a Senate Intelligence Committee member, told reporters Tuesday that he “can’t imagine a world” in which he does not.
Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that she wants Trump Jr. and others to testify before her panel in an open setting.
Judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley said he plans to invite Manafort to speak before the committee -– and subpoena him if he does not cooperate –- first on failure to register as a foreign agent despite consulting for foreign entities including Ukrainian political figures.
Neither Warner nor Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr have confirmed that they have or will ask Trump Jr. to testify. Kushner agreed last month to speak to the committee, and congressional investigators had also previously requested documents from Manafort.
Interviews with Trump officials began this week and the committee has given no indication how long they will continue –- but the scope of the investigation widens with new revelations about Trump team members’ alleged ties to the Russian government.