House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said his panel would consider subpoenaing an American interpreter who took notes during a meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We certainly could subpoena the interpreter. We could subpoena the interpreter’s notes. The question is on what basis will they refuse, because they will refuse, and what is our chance of success on that?” Schiff said during a Wednesday interview on CNN. “I think we have to look at is there a method for us to get that information voluntarily? Is there a way to assure the country that the president, behind closed doors, is not sacrificing the interests of the country? It’s always our preference to get voluntary cooperation before we consider compulsion.”
The California Democrat’s comments come after his counterpart in the Senate, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., said he would not seek the interpreter’s notes.
“If I were the president, I would try to claim executive privilege in anything that had to do with him,” Burr said, according to CNN.
But Schiff on Wednesday evening expressed doubt Trump could rely on executive privilege.
“That privilege really normally applies when the president is seeking advice from his counselors and there’s a policy interest in making sure that he has the free and unfettered opinion of those,” he said. “That’s not the case when he’s speaking to a foreign leader and is speaking to that foreign leader in private. I don’t think the privilege applies, but we want to be on the strongest possible ground. If the president destroyed any record of that meeting, that’s a separate issue and a separate problem. That gives us further potential jurisdiction to get answers.”
The Washington Post reported over the weekend that Trump tried to protect his conversations with Putin, including taking his interpreter’s notes from their Hamburg meeting and pressuring the interpreter to withhold information from administration officials. A New York Times article earlier reported that the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into Trump the day after he fired FBI Director James Comey in2017.
