"We will be issuing document requests to over 60 different people," said House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on ABC's "This Week," as Nadler made clear Democrats were not going to sit back and wait for a report to be produced by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Some of the lines of inquiry come directly from last week's testimony by Cohen, in which he named a number of figures - including Donald Trump Jr. and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.
"It's called oversight," said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), as he mocked the President's Sunday complaints on Twitter about Democratic-led investigations.
"Elections have consequences," said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI).
NEW: House judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler says "tomorrow we will be issuing document requests to over 60 different people and individuals from the White House, to the Dept. of Justice, Donald Trump Jr. ... to begin investigations" https://t.co/aKKQQqgb77 #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/KcDRiGftCB
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 3, 2019
Along with Nadler's new requests for documents and other information, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have already set a Monday deadline for documents and other materials related to a story which blew up late last week - as to whether President Trump overrode the objections of senior intelligence officials, and gave a top secret clearance to his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
"If true, these new reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about Mr. Kushner to recommend denying him access to our nation’s most sensitive secrets," said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who demanded to know 'why President Trump concealed his role in overruling that recommendation.'
"Please provide your response to the Committee by March 4, 2019," Cummings wrote in a letter to the White House, his third attempt this year to get documents and information about the security clearance questions.
As for the President, he made clear on Twitter that he regarded the investigations as not only misguided - but 'harassment.'
Presidential Harassment by “crazed” Democrats at the highest level in the history of our Country. Likewise, the most vicious and corrupt Mainstream Media that any president has ever had to endure - Yet the most successful first two years for any
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2019
It was obvious from the President's Twitter feed this weekend that the testimony of Michael Cohen was much on his mind - as the President tweeted about an unknown book manuscript supposedly written by Cohen - which the President called a 'love letter' about him.
No such item has been released - as it wasn't immediately apparent what the President was talking about.
"I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start," Mr. Trump tweeted, as he blamed the Cohen hearing for undermining his nuclear negotiations with the North Koreans.
For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with North Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the “walk.” Never done when a president is overseas. Shame!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2019
Cohen will return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to give more testimony behind closed doors to the House Intelligence Committee.
Also, that panel will hear in public session on March 14 from Felix Sater, a business associate of the President who was involved in some of the efforts by the Trump Organization to secure a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Sater - who has his own criminal past and alleged ties to Russian organized crime - has been in the background of the Mueller investigation for some time.
Unlike Cohen and others, the President has never mentioned Sater's name on Twitter.
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