Key Lawmakers Seek To Haul In Trump Associates Working With Mueller
Now that President Donald Trump’s former “fixer,” Michael Cohen, has been sentenced to prison, leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence committees are preparing to haul him back before Congress before he begins serving time.
He’s not the only one.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is also seeking to speak to other officials in Trump’s orbit who have been charged in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, his former deputy Rick Gates and former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, according to committee leaders and sources familiar with the probe.
“I think it’s safe to say if they were indicted, they were on our list,” Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, told CNN. “We potentially will talk to a lot of folks.”
The witnesses, if they testify, would help the Senate Intelligence Committee fill in key blanks in its investigation into 2016 Russian election interference, which has remained a bipartisan probe as it’s stretched on for nearly two years, though it has yet to reach consensus on whether the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin.
Burr and Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel’s top Democrat, have waited to speak to or in some cases re-interview — several key officials after they agreed to cooperate with Mueller, but the opportunity could soon be approaching.
The committee has been engaged in discussions with the special counsel and defense attorneys to get access to several cooperating Mueller witnesses in addition to Cohen, including Flynn, Papadopoulos and Gates, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
