The Republican-led Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted along party lines on Wednesday to reaffirm and broaden Chairman Ron Johnson’s subpoena authority for witnesses in an inquiry into the Russia investigation.
The panel’s June business meeting had authorized subpoenas for 33 Trump-Russia figures, and after efforts by Democratic ranking member Sen. Gary Peters to throw up roadblocks, the Wednesday meeting reauthorized the subpoenas for all of them in an 8-6 vote. It also approved subpoena authorization authority for seven more possible witnesses: Cambridge professor and FBI informant Stefan Halper; Halper’s FBI handler, Stephen Somma; James Baker, the director of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment; Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tashina Gauhar; former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe; top Justice Department official Bruce Ohr; and John Tefft, the United States ambassador to Russia under former President Barack Obama.
