Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), senior Member of the House Judiciary Committee, released the following statement concerning new revelations of Trump campaign contacts with a Russian government representative during the 2016 election:
“This morning’s New York Times report provided new and deeply troubling details surrounding a meeting between Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort with a representative of the Russian government – Natalia Veselnitskaya. Donald Trump, Jr.’s subsequent response, including the released excerpts from an email exchange, suggest incriminating evidence of collusion with Russia by the highest levels of the Trump campaign. Donald Trump, Jr. confirmed interest in, and expressed support for, working with Russian officials who offered allegedly incriminating evidence against Hillary Clinton for the purpose of assisting Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. This revelation is significant, both for the ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, as well as new investigative territory that relate to President Trump and his associates.
“The repeated denials of meetings and contacts of this kind now lend new weight to possible charges of obstruction of justice given what appears to be clear evidence of an intent to collude between the campaign and the Russian government. The public interest to uncover answers raises new questions in this regard: Did President Trump know about the offer presented to his campaign, and/or the correspondence and eventual meeting between his son, Mr. Kushner, and Mr. Manafort and the Russian representative? Was the President and/or his administration trying to conceal efforts to engage in criminal activity—namely, the conspiracy to commit election fraud—by failing to disclose or obstructing the discovery and investigation of foreign contacts?
“The criminal investigation by Director Mueller and the House and Senate Intelligence Committee investigations must, of course, continue. However, when it comes to investigating the sweeping nature of the current allegations, the firing of FBI Director Comey, the potential criminal activity by the Trump campaign, and the attempt by a foreign power to undermine our elections – it is clear that we must have open hearings with the jurisdiction and authority to fully conduct an investigation of this matter. The House Judiciary Committee should immediately conduct hearings to investigate, and I call on Chairman Goodlatte and the Republican leadership to allow the public interest to be served.”