Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is coming out guns-a-blazing in response to committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr’s decision to issue a rogue subpoena of President Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. Cornyn, who until after the midterm elections served as the number two-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate as the Majority Whip, now is calling on Burr, a North Carolina Republican, to cease once and for all the committee’s investigation into the Russia hoax. “My understanding is that Donald Trump Jr. has cooperated with the committee extensively,” Cornyn said on Thursday in comments to reporters, including CNN’s Manu Raju, according to a transcript of the senator’s remarks that Cornyn’s office provided to Breitbart News. “My understanding is also that committee staff asked him to come back in to wrap up that investigation. I’m going to talk to the chairman and the other members of the committee and find out exactly where we are,” Cornyn said, adding: But I just think after the Mueller investigation has concluded after two years, dozens of lawyers and others, FBI agents, investigating this, we know everything we already know about Russian collusion and there was none. So I think the rationale of keeping the investigation of the Intelligence Committee open is wearing kind of thin. When Raju asked him if Trump Jr. should come in to testify again in response to the subpoena, Cornyn did not say he should come in. “I’m going to talk to the chairman and committee members and staff and figure out exactly where we are,” Cornyn said. “All I can tell you is he has cooperated extensively. I can understand why after the Mueller investigation is over, his frustration at thinking how much longer is this going to go on, I think that’s a legitimate concern, but the committee needs to wrap up its [investigation].” When Raju noted that Trump Jr. plans to defy the subpoena, Cornyn then said he does not know, but, again, for a third time, he reiterated that the Senate Intelligence Committee must conclude its investigation because there is no collusion. “Well, I’m not going to speculate on what he may or may not do; we’ll wait and see,” Cornyn said. “I’m going to get more information, but I do think it’s time for us to begin wrapping up the Intelligence Committee’s investigation.” Sen. John Cornyn told me he understands Donald Trump Jr’s “frustration” with Senate Intel and says the committee probe is “wearing kind of thin.” Lindsey Graham told me he would be “reluctant” to let Don Jr come back to Senate Intel if he were his attorney — Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 9, 2019 Cornyn on Senate Intel Cmte subpoenaing Donald Trump Jr: This is not about finding facts. This smacks of politics and I think we have an important job to do to try to keep the intelligence committee out of politics and just keep ourselves focused on our mission — Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) May 9, 2019 Not one Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee is publicly defending Burr’s move to subpoena Trump Jr., which was made in contravention of orders from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who this week said the Russia hoax is now “case closed.”<doc-sep>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed one of the president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr., to answer questions about his contacts with Russia, two congressional sources said on Wednesday. The panel, which along with the Senate is controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans, wants to question Trump Jr. about testimony he gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2017 which was subsequently contradicted in public testimony by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, one of the sources said. The committee is one of the few in the Senate that has been conducting serious investigations related to Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner has appeared before the panel at least twice. During his Judiciary Committee appearance, the source said, Trump Jr. was asked about the extent of his involvement in a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. “Like I said, I was peripherally aware of it, but most of my knowledge has been gained since as it relates to hearing about it over the last few weeks,” Trump Jr. told the committee, according to an official transcript. In testimony before the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, however, Cohen, said he briefed Trump family members “approximately 10 times” about the Moscow Trump Tower project, and that Trump Jr. and his sister Ivanka were among the family members he briefed. Cohen has also told Congress that some reimbursement checks issued to him for hush money payments to an adult film star who said she had an affair with President Trump were signed by Trump Jr, as well as the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer. FILE PHOTO: Donald Trump Jr. speaks on stage during a rally for U.S. President Donald Trump at El Paso County Coliseum in El Paso, Texas, U.S., February 11, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis Cohen this week began serving a federal prison sentence for tax evasion and campaign finance violations. In his report on Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election in 2016, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team of prosecutors reported that there was a “reasonable argument” that Trump Jr. violated campaign finance laws. But Mueller’s team concluded they did not believe they could obtain a conviction. A lawyer for Trump Jr. did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. A Senate Intelligence Committee spokeswoman declined to discuss details of its own long-running investigation into Russia’s election interference. Along with senior campaign adviser Paul Manafort and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump Jr. participated in a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who they believed had damaging information on Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic opponent in the election. At one point, Trump Jr. sent Rob Goldstone, a publicist involved in setting up the meeting, an email declaring: “If it’s what you say, I love it ...” But he later tweeted that all Veselnitskaya wanted to talk about was adoption policy and an anti-Russian U.S. sanctions law. In his report, Mueller detailed extensive contacts between Trump’s election campaign and Russian operatives, but did not find evidence of a conspiracy. Trump Jr. has used his Twitter feed to condemn the investigations and media coverage of his father, tweeting on Wednesday: “Democrats are not interested in the truth, they just want to keep the Hoax going forever. The games need to stop.” “Investigate the investigators!” he tweeted on Tuesday.<doc-sep>Donald Trump, Jr. speaks at a Make America Great Again rally in Great Falls, Mont., July 5, 2018. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) Let Congress do its job. We are now officially in the midst of yet another Republican civil skirmish. Two days ago, Axios broke the news that the GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee had “subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr. to answer questions about his previous testimony before Senate investigators.” At issue, we later learned, is an apparent discrepancy between Trump Jr.’s previous testimony and the testimony of President Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer,” Michael Cohen. Advertisement Reportedly, the committee subpoenaed Donald Jr. several weeks ago, before Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell declared “case closed” on the question of whether there had been a “conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign.” So shouldn’t Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee, drop the subpoena? Hasn’t Special Counsel Robert Mueller already covered this ground? Is Burr now just a “RINO” who is “doing the bidding of vindictive Democrats”? Is he, as Rand Paul claims, defying McConnell’s “case closed” edict? Not at all. Burr should be left alone to do his job. Despite Mueller’s report, Congress still has a vital role to play, and the president’s allies should not be permitted to neuter the superior branch of government. Let’s make this as simple as possible. First, the special counsel’s report does not render the Senate Intelligence Committee’s work either moot or irrelevant. The special counsel and the committee have different missions. As Marco Rubio explained yesterday, “Mueller [was] a criminal-justice investigation. Ours is an intelligence investigation about the Russia threat and about the way our agencies performed.” Advertisement While Rubio understates the counterintelligence elements of the Mueller investigation, the differences between it and the Intelligence Committee’s investigation are still obvious and important. Mueller, for example, did not focus on the full extent of the broader Russian threat beyond the campaign or on evaluating the performance of our own intelligence agencies in confronting that threat. The scope of the special-counsel investigation and the focus of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation overlap, but they are not identical – not by a long shot. It’s a matter of sheer logic and common sense that a broader examination of Russian activity and intentions will include an examination of Russian ties or contacts with American citizens even if those ties or contacts aren’t criminal. Moreover, it’s just naïve and strange to believe that in the absence of criminal conspiracies there is no need for further inquiry. While there is no meaningful evidence that Russia’s disruption operation swayed the outcome of the 2016 election, in other respects it was remarkably successful at sowing discord, confusion, and division in the American body politic. It’s vital to understand exactly what Russia did, how Americans (including American governmental institutions) responded, and whether we’re vulnerable to future disruptions. Second, it’s standard (and necessary) for a congressional committee to seek additional testimony in the event of conflicting accounts. If two witnesses contradict each other, it would be investigative malpractice not to probe further. And when probing further, there is no substitute for live testimony. The ability to ask probing follow-up questions is invaluable to the quest for truth. Canned, lawyer-crafted written responses are a poor substitute for a closely examined personal account. Advertisement Writing at Commentary, Noah Rothman has carefully noted three areas of potential interest for the Intelligence Committee: 1) Was Trump Jr. fully forthcoming with the committee about the nature and purpose of the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya? ; 2) Does the committee have complete information about Trump Jr.’s contacts with Wikileaks? ; and, most notably, 3) How much did he know about (or participate in) efforts to build a Trump Tower Moscow? Third, the Senate Intelligence Committee is fulfilling its constitutional role. I completely understand the widespread GOP frustration that the special counsel’s investigation represented the executive branch investigating itself. Especially as it relates to possible obstruction of justice, this state of affairs creates confusing and complex legal distortions. (For example, can a president truly unlawfully obstruct justice by firing an employee he has a right to fire or by modifying an investigation he has a right to modify?) Advertisement But these objections and concerns simply don’t apply to the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the executive’s decision to investigate itself through the special-counsel appointment is irrelevant to the Senate’s constitutional authority and the Intelligence Committee’s oversight obligations. The Intelligence Committee’s investigation predates the Mueller investigation. It has a different (and broader) scope than the Mueller investigation. And it operates in a separate — and superior — branch of government. Moreover, Burr’s conduct throughout the committee’s investigation has been exemplary, and the committee’s work has been professional and bipartisan. Chairman Burr is not running a “witch hunt,” and out of basic respect for the law, for the Senate, and for the constitutional structure of our government, Trump Jr. should comply with the Intelligence Committee’s subpoena. The Committee doesn’t just have a right to seek the truth from him, it has an obligation to do so. Burr’s GOP critics should stand down. He is doing exactly what he is supposed to do.<doc-sep>The decision by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. has ignited a GOP civil war. Allies of the Trumps and several Republican senators — specifically, those up for re-election in 2020 or close to President Trump — are attacking the committee chairman, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), and pressuring others to do the same, The New York Times and The Washington Post report. The effort has borne some fruit. Burr's committee, which has been discreetly investigating Russian election interference and how to prevent it for two years, issued the subpoena more than a week ago, after Trump Jr. refused to voluntarily come in for a second interview, the Post reports. But its existence wasn't public until Wednesday, a day after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gave a speech in which he declared "case closed" on the Russia investigation, and it caught the White House off guard. The "extraordinary pressure campaign" by Trump's allies "is forcing the party's senators to choose between their loyalty to the Intelligence Committee and to the president's family as it attempts to quash any remaining investigations of the president," the Times reports. And if Trump Jr. defies the subpoena, Burr and McConnell will have to decide whether to allow votes to hold him in contempt. Trump Jr. is "said to be 'exasperated' by the subpoena," the Post reports, and several of his confidantes tell the Times he's "unlikely to appear in person" and might "invoke his Fifth Amendment rights in a written response." The Senate Intelligence Committee is reportedly interested in asking Trump Jr. follow-up questions about the Trump Tower Moscow deal and the Trump Tower meeting he set up to get "dirt" on Hillary Clinton from the Russians. But despite the apparently coordinated outrage from Team Trump, "the subpoena appears to have been essentially routine," the Times reports. "As it completes its work, the committee is calling back key witnesses who spoke to staff members so senators can question them directly."<doc-sep>
WASHINGTON — Republican senators have taken the unusual step of publicly criticizing their colleague who is running the chamber’s Russia investigation following reports that his committee had subpoenaed the president’s eldest son. Republicans in the upper chamber have overwhelmingly expressed public support for Sen. Richard Burr, the North Carolina Republican who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, during the two years the panel has carried out Congress’s sole bipartisan investigation into Russian election interference. But that changed this week after it became public that the committee had subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr. to compel him to testify before the panel a second time. The news came just a day after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the chamber floor to declare that, since special counsel Robert Mueller finished his criminal investigation without establishing that the Trump campaign had conspired with Russia, the “case [is] closed.” “I agree with Leader McConnell: this case is closed,” Republican Sen. Thom Tillis — Burr’s colleague from North Carolina — tweeted Thursday in response to news that the Intelligence Committee had subpoenaed Trump Jr. “The Mueller Report cleared @DonaldJTrumpJr and he’s already spent 27 hours testifying before Congress. Dems have made it clear this is all about politics. It’s time to move on & start focusing on issues that matter to Americans.” Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican member of Burr’s committee, said the decision to subpoena the president’s son “smacks of politics” and that he would talk to Burr about what work is left to do to finish the probe. "My understanding is Mr. Trump Jr. has cooperated extensively with the committee," Cornyn told reporters Thursday. "I can understand his frustration at being asked to come back after having cooperated for such a long period of time, and seeing now that the Mueller report is concluded, sort of wondering what the purpose of this is. I'm going to talk to the chairman and the committee members about what we need to do to wrap up our investigation. At some point, this is not about finding facts, this smacks of politics, and I think we have an important job to do to try to keep the Intelligence Committee out of politics." A spokesperson for Cornyn on Friday argued that his "smacks of politics" comment applied more broadly to congressional investigations, not specifically to the Trump Jr. subpoena. Later in the interview, Cornyn also claimed he "didn't say" that Burr's decision was a political one, according to a transcript provided by Cornyn's office. "The committee’s been doing important work that’s been done on a bipartisan basis, and it really is about finding out what the facts are and what we need to do to prevent foreign interference in the future," Cornyn said. Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, criticized Burr directly. “Apparently the Republican chair of the Senate Intel Committee didn’t get the memo from the Majority Leader that this case was closed…,” Paul tweeted Wednesday. The president, who tweeted in February that Burr was a “highly respected” senator after the Intelligence Committee chair declared that the investigation had yet to unearth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, said Thursday he was “very surprised” by news of the subpoena. “I saw Richard Burr saying there was no collusion two or three weeks ago,” Trump told reporters. “My son’s a very good person, works very hard; the last thing he needs is Washington, DC.” Burr faced criticism from the House as well, with Republican leader Kevin McCarthy tweeting that Trump Jr. “has already spent dozens of hours testifying in front of Congressional committees. Endless investigations—by either party—won't change the fact that there was NO collusion. It's time to move on. It’s time to focus on ISSUES, not investigations.” Trump Jr. first testified in private before staff on the Senate Intelligence Committee for nine hours in December 2017. The committee wants to question him further about his involvement in the now infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russians and negotiations to build a Trump property in Moscow during the 2016 campaign, the New York Times reported. Trump Jr.'s lawyer Alan Futerfas did not respond to a request for comment.