DPCC Co-Chair Lieu: We Need to Know if Trump Committed Any Crimes
WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Ted Lieu Co-Chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), appeared on All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC to discuss Special Counsel Mueller's investigation as well as the House Judiciary Committee's oversight efforts to follow the facts to see if Donald Trump, his associates, or family members committed any crimes. Below are excerpts from the interview. Click here to watch the video
"Thank you, Chris, for your question. Let me first say that I hope our investigation exonerates Donald Trump. I don't want to think that our president is a crook, but I fear that our investigation will not do that. We're going to take the facts wherever it may lead us and we are going to leave no stone unturned. This is just a first salvo of 81 organizations and individuals that we want to get documents from. And with regard to Ivanka Trump that you mentioned, I just want to note that running a business into the ground is interesting. Not sure that's a crime."
"Based on public reporting, Donald Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, colluded. He gave the Russians internal polling data and he was working with the Russians based on the public reporting. So the question of whether Donald Trump knew about what was happening, we don't know yet. The Special Counsel has not concluded his investigation, but it is a limited investigation, Mueller's investigation. They just want to know, did someone commit a crime related to Russian interference? The House Judiciary's oversight mission is far broader. We want to know did Donald Trump or his associates or family members commit any crime."
"Those are great questions. First of all, we want to know, did Donald Trump, his family or his associates commit any crime? Second, we want to know, did they commit any unethical misconduct, whether or not it rises to the level of a federal offense? And third, how do we prevent this from happening again? We want to be transparent with the American people. If it takes us to impeachment, we'll go there. If it doesn't, we won't go there. But we have to build a record and share this with the American people before we decide how to proceed."
"It will depend on each individual company. If you look at the letters we sent, they were not mass form letters. They were very detailed individual letters to companies and individuals with very specific requests related to their own set of facts. And based on what we hope to get a lot of documents back. If people don't want to send that, then we will negotiate with them. If we have to, we will start looking at subpoenas."
"We want to talk to all these individuals at some point. We certainly want their documents. Some individuals we'd like before a public hearing. Some we can simply interview with members or our staff. I'm glad you mentioned Hope Hicks. Let's give an example of Hope Hicks. She lied to the American people, basically saying repeatedly that Trump had nothing to do with Russia and his associates, had no meetings with Russia. It turns out that was just a lie. We want to know, well, did Donald Trump tell her to lie? What does she know about what happened? What kind of orders was she given or did he just make this stuff up at the time. So that's why we have all these individuals that we want to talk to, because we want to connect the dots and really put out a narrative as to what happened, why it happened, how to prevent this from happening again."