Blumenthal to Grassley: Subpoena Trump, Jr. Now

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley today asking that he immediately issue a subpoena for public testimony and documents from Donald Trump, Jr.

Trump, Jr. has thus far failed to fully comply with the Senate Judiciary Committee’s documents request, and initially withheld secret messages he exchanged with WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential campaign. This follows a disturbing a pattern of Trump, Jr. giving incomplete or misleading statements about his involvement in communications with Russian agents. Despite Trump, Jr.’s refusal to cooperate with the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation, Chairman Grassley has taken no action to compel his testimony or ensure that he has turned over all documents that fall within the Committee’s jurisdiction.

The full text of Blumenthal’s letter is available here and copied below.

December 5, 2017

The Honorable Charles E. Grassley

Chairman

Committee on the Judiciary

United States Senate

224 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairman Grassley:

I am writing to request that the Senate Judiciary Committee immediately issue a subpoena for public testimony and documents from Donald Trump, Jr. Recent revelations have shown beyond question that the American people can only feel certain that Mr. Trump, Jr. has been fully forthcoming if he is subject to a subpoena.

Over the past few weeks, there have been a number of cascading disclosures that suggest collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Among the most stunning disclosures was an exposé in The Atlantic on November 13 detailing Mr. Trump, Jr.’s secret messages with WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential campaign. Beginning in September 2016, WikiLeaks and Mr. Trump, Jr. exchanged dozens of messages regarding stolen emails and other forms of assistance for the campaign. These messages were taken seriously: after the first publicly known message, Mr. Trump, Jr. notified other high-ranking campaign officials that WikiLeaks had made contact. On one occasion, then-candidate Trump referred his supporters to information published by WikiLeaks just fifteen minutes after it sent a message to his son.  As you know, President Trump’s CIA director has called WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.” It is extremely troubling to me that Mr. Trump, Jr. would correspond and collaborate with an entity like that.

Equally troubling is the way these communications came to light. Though he claimed to be fully cooperating with the Judiciary Committee investigation, Mr. Trump, Jr. did not initially turn over these communications, even though they are well within the scope of the Committee’s document request. Only after he was questioned under oath did he reveal the existence of these communications. He therefore provided them to the Committee too late for us to question him about them. Because Mr. Trump, Jr. has never been compelled to testify before the Committee, we have had no opportunity to discuss these explosive communications with him. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump, Jr.’s failure to be forthcoming is part of a pattern. He and his attorney issued three incomplete and misleading statements regarding his June 9 meeting with Russian agents. Mr. Trump, Jr. released his correspondence regarding the meeting – which contradicted his prior accounts – only after learning the New York Times was about to publish it. Mr. Trump, Jr. is scheduled to testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee this week, but he has not agreed to come before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a public setting.

Mr. Trump, Jr.’s refusal to testify before the Committee means that key questions have been left unanswered.

• First, why did WikiLeaks feel confident that it could inform Mr. Trump, Jr. that it had hacked the website of a Trump critic? Hacking is a crime, and it beggars belief that WikiLeaks would confess a crime to the son of a presidential candidate without some reason to believe that its confession would be kept secret.

• Second, how did Mr. Trump, Jr. know of WikiLeaks’ plans to leak Mr. Podesta’s emails before they were released? The WikiLeaks communications include a message in which Mr. Trump, Jr. indicates that he knows WikiLeaks is planning a document dump and asks for more information, but none of the communications made public thus far explain how Mr. Trump, Jr. first acquired this knowledge.

• Third, did Mr. Trump, Jr. and WikiLeaks exchange additional messages, inside or outside of Twitter? The informal and conversational tone of the WikiLeaks messages strongly indicates that these messages were part of a broader course of communications. Furthermore, on October 21, 2016, WikiLeaks suggested corresponding via email or “lawyer to lawyer,” raising the possibility that the conversation was continued through other channels.

• Fourth — and perhaps most crucially — why would Mr. Trump, Jr. see an invitation from WikiLeaks to coordinate efforts as anything other than an inappropriate, unethical, and potentially illegal act? Why did he seek the campaign’s assistance in collaborating with WikiLeaks instead of reporting these communications to law enforcement?

The questions mentioned above – and many other questions related to Russia and the Trump campaign – can only be answered if Mr. Trump, Jr. is compelled to fully cooperate with the Committee’s investigation. I respectfully request that the Senate Judiciary Committee issue a subpoena to compel him to fully account for his actions in front of the American people and to provide this Committee with the documents we need to fulfill our important oversight responsibilities.