Democrats want to share

Judiciary Democrats want to share Trump Jr. testimony with Mueller

Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Richard Blumenthal suggested the president's son may have made false statements to their committee.

By ELANA SCHOR

Two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday pressed the committee's Republican chairman to provide special counsel Robert Mueller with transcripts of the panel's interviews with key witnesses in its Russia probe, including Donald Trump Jr.

The request, from Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), reflected the partisan tension in a judiciary committee whose investigation has for months been splintered along party lines.

It also amounted to a suggestion that witnesses — potentially including Donald Trump Jr., who sat for an interview in September — may have made false statements to the committee. In a recent interview, Blumenthal predicted the Trump Jr. transcript would be “explosive” if released.

The Democrats recalled the early-January decision of Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to refer Christopher Steele, the author of the controversial intelligence dossier on Trump's alleged Russia ties, to the FBI for criminal investigation into possible false statements.

"You have stated publicly that you believe it is important for the Special Counsel to carry his investigation through to completion and determine the facts," the Democratic duo wrote to Grassley. "It is hard to see how withholding the transcripts achieves that goal."

"The transcripts of congressional testimony may reveal other, and better-founded, concerns about witness false statements," they wrote.

The Democrats also said they believe panel members in both parties already have "agreed in principle" on sharing testimony with Mueller's team to aid its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election — including potential collusion with President Donald Trump's campaign.

Grassley spokesman George Hartmann said the Judiciary chairman "has long been committed to transparency, and well before this letter from Sens. Whitehouse and Blumenthal, he's said he wants to release as much as possible, including transcripts."

Grassley "intends to confer with" fellow committee members about potential release of transcripts, Hartmann said.

The Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, angered Grassley earlier this month when she unilaterally released the transcript of the panel's interview with Glenn Simpson, co-founder of the firm that commissioned the Trump-Russia dossier Steele compiled.

Feinstein said Wednesday that she would have to look at her fellow Democrats' request before fully endorsing it, but said lawmakers should aim for transparency.

"By and large, with a congressional investigation, I feel that what can be released should be released," Feinstein told reporters, adding that she spent last weekend reading the transcript of the House Intelligence Committee's interview with Simpson and "a lot of information was forthcoming."

"So I think it's a positive thing. People can look, they can criticize ... not everything is going to be right, you know?" Feinstein said.

Asked if she would consider releasing the Trump Jr. transcript in the same fashion that she released the Fusion transcript, Feinstein replied: "No, that hasn't even come up. ... That may be a little different. We'll see."

Beyond their request that Mueller receive Judiciary Committee transcripts, both Whitehouse and Blumenthal have said in recent interviews that they would like to see the transcript of the panel's interview with the president's eldest son get publicly released.

Trump Jr. took a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer linked to the Kremlin, also attended by Jared Kushner and Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The Russian lawyer had offered the Trump campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, though Trump Jr. and others have said she provided no useful information.

"I think all these transcripts should be released — it's just a question of how and when," Blumenthal said in a recent interview. "And the Donald Trump Jr. interview transcript will be explosive when it sees the light of day."

Whitehouse agreed in a recent interview, saying that senators "also need to rethink, if there isn’t going to be a public hearing, why would we not release that transcript? And under any circumstances, why would we not let Bob Mueller have access to it?"

Asked Wednesday about the idea of releasing Trump Jr.'s Senate Judiciary Committee interview transcript to the public, Whitehouse said his request to provide Mueller with the document was "the first step."

Its potential utility to Mueller, he noted, would likely determine whether and when it might be made public as Simpson's testimony was, first by the Senate and later by the House Intelligence Committee.