Senate Republicans do not want the public to see Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner testify about their Trump Tower meeting to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russians. Democrats are pushing for public hearings, but as long as Republicans control the Senate, they can protect Junior and the golden boy.
Burr, who has led the most bipartisan of the three major congressional probes into Russian campaign interference, said in several interviews in recent weeks that he doesn’t see any reason for public hearings with Kushner and Trump Jr. because they’ve already answered extensive questions from staff behind closed doors.
“The threshold is there has to be value for the American people to hear a public hearing, and I have yet to identify anything that I need to know that they haven’t answered,” Burr said.
There has to be value for the American people … but Richard Burr is content with what he knows from secret staff interviews, so that’s good enough. It almost sounds like that “value for the American people” thing is a talking point and not the reality of the situation.
[Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck] Grassley said recently that his committee’s investigation into the Trump Tower meeting was over because Kushner was “spooked” out of providing a voluntary closed-door interview with the panel’s staff. The chairman blamed ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein’s unilateral release of the transcript from an interview with another key witness -- Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, who commissioned an unverified dossier on Trump from former British spy Christopher Steele.
Kushner was afraid to talk to staff behind closed doors, so that’s it, investigation over? Is this how investigations usually work—if the subject tells investigators he’s afraid to talk, he gets a pass? Somehow I think not. It seems weird to have to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee chair this, but there’s a thing called a “subpoena” that can be helpful in situations like this.
That would only be relevant if Republicans wanted the public to get answers on Trump-Russia, though—or to get a firsthand look at how badly Junior and Jared duck and weave when asked simple questions.
Help Democrats get subpoena power! Can you give $3 to the Democratic nominee funds in Arizona and Nevada?