'We will get answers': Congress to subpoena a dozen witnesses about Trump's crimes

The House Judiciary Committee is looking to issue more subpoenas to compel testimony from the people closest to Trump. who know about his potential criminal activity, Chairman Jerry Nadler announced in a Tuesday statement.

The committee will vote on Thursday to authorize Nadler to issue subpoenas to 12 individuals with knowledge of Trump’s potential crimes, including former Attorney General Jef Sessions, White House adviser (and Trump son-in-law) Jared Kushner, former White House chief of staff John Kelly, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and eight others.

The subpoenas are necessary for the committee to “move forward with our efforts to request information from critical witnesses as part of our ongoing investigation into obstruction, corruption and abuse of power by the President and his associates,” Nadler said in a statement. “As always, I remain open to reaching a reasonable accommodation and will not issue subpoenas if the information we are seeking is voluntarily provided.”

Nadler ended the statement by saying, “We will get answers one way or the other.”

Politico notes that each of the witnesses listed by Nadler were crucial to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and could provide Congress with critical information. For example, two of the witnesses — Dylan Howard and David Pecker — work for the parent company of the National Enquirer and may have knowledge of Trump’s hush money payments to multiple mistresses before the 2016 election.

Testimony from Sessions and Lewandowski could shed additional light on Trump’s efforts to both obstruct the Mueller investigation and even shut it down.

The Trump White House has engaged in unprecedented obstruction and stonewalling of Congress, refusing to hand over documents or allow witnesses to discuss events with congressional investigators. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said such cover-up attempts “could be an impeachable offense.”

The Trump White House is obstructing at least 20 different investigations, and witnesses are not forthcoming if they do speak with congressional investigators. Earlier this year, former top White House aide Hope Hicks refused to answer more than 200 questions put forward by Congress.

Trump is desperately hiding information from Congress and instructing his minions to obey him rather than cooperate in legitimate investigations. But with a new batch of subpoenas, Nadler hopes to get to the truth.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.