Bensonhurst

Nadler presses for House Judiciary hearing on Trump

July 24, 2017 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia, Friday, July 21. Sessions was singled out for criticism by President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times last week. AP Photo/Matt Rourke
Share this:

The shock waves over President Donald Trump’s now-infamous interview with the New York Times are still reverberating on Capitol Hill, nearly a week after it was published.

In the wake of the July 19 interview, in which the president sharply criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions and issued a veiled warning to Special Counsel Robert Mueller to stay away from investigating his family’s finances, U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler called on the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on Trump and the controversies swirling around his administration.

Nadler (D-Upper West Side, Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst) is a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Nadler and all of the other Democrats on the committee, including ranking member U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Michigan), fired off a letter to U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), the committee’s chairman, demanding that he call an oversight hearing.

Three congressional committees, The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, are all investigating suspected Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race.

But the House Committee on the Judiciary has not held an oversight hearing related to the Russia investigation, Nadler said.

And that’s odd, according to Nadler, who pointed out that the Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over Department of Justice and the FBI, which are looking into the Russian meddling as well as possible ties between the Russian government and individuals in the Trump presidential campaign.

“We write again to request that you schedule hearings with the senior leadership of the Department of Justice, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, without delay,” the letter to Goodlatte reads.

“President Trump’s contempt for the leadership of the Department of Justice is now clear,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote.

The interview revealed Trump’s contempt for the leadership of the U.S. Department of Justice, according to the Democrats, who said the president not only attacked Sessions, but also had sharp criticism at Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

In the interview, the president criticized Sessions for his recusal over the Russia investigation and told The New York Times that he would consider it a violation if Mueller and his team of investigators tried to scrutinize Trump family finances.

It’s important that the House Judiciary Committee look into the matter, according to Nadler and his Democratic colleagues on the committee.

“We believe that our failing to act now will allow others to inflict lasting damage to the Department of Justice.  It will also inflict lasting damage to our committee, which has, in years past and under the leadership of chairmen of both parties, rarely shied away from providing meaningful oversight of the department and its component agencies,” the letter reads.

 

Subscribe to our newsletters


Leave a Comment


Leave a Comment