Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the House Intelligence Committee plans to investigate whether there was “illicit foreign funding or involvement in the inauguration” of President Trump.
“Whenever a foreign nation uses its financial wealth to violate the laws of our country, it undermines our democracy,” Schiff said in a statement, according to the Washington Post. “When another country does so in concert with U.S. persons, it carries the additional risk of compromising them and presents a particularly acute counterintelligence risk.”
Schiff, who will take over as chairman of the committee next year, has been fiercely critical of the president and has previously expressed interest in investigating Trump’s finances.
Special counsel Robert Mueller has investigated whether any foreign money flowed into Trump’s inaugural fund as part of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
That investigation has already notched one guilty plea, when in late August American political consultant W. Samuel Patten pleaded guilty to failing to register as a foreign lobbyist after donating $50,000 from a Ukrainian politician to the inaugural committee through a straw donor.
Mueller has also questioned Tom Barrack, a friend of Trump’s who chaired the committee.
The committee said in a statement that it was “in full compliance with all applicable laws and disclosure obligations” and “donors were vetted in accordance with the law and no improprieties have been found regarding the vetting of those donors.”
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether the inaugural committee misspent some of it funds.
