Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., admonished a leading Republican colleague Wednesday, reminding him party leadership has decided the Russia investigation discussion in the chamber of Congress they control is finished.
“Apparently the Republican chair of the Senate Intel Committee didn’t get the memo from the Majority Leader that this case was closed…” Paul tweeted Wednesday evening.
Paul’s tweet was accompanied by a link to an Axios report published Wednesday revealing the Senate Intelligence Committee had issued a subpoena for additional testimony from Donald Trump Jr. regarding the committee’s Russia investigation.
The committee seeks additional information from the president’s eldest son about the Trump Tower meeting during the 2016 Trump campaign with a Russian agent offering politically damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
Several Republicans on Capitol Hill have criticized committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., for issuing a subpoena that they say will just continue the ongoing debate about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and report.
Mueller found no collusion took place between Trump associates and Russian agents, but made no decision on the question of whether Trump sought to undermine or end his probe.
Trump Jr. has provided nearly 30 hours of testimony to congressional committees about various matters relating to Russia.
He, like his father, has continuously derided the Mueller investigation as a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
[Opinion: Nadler’s show trial, not Barr, deserves to be held in contempt]
Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., declared the Russian investigation and Mueller’s report “case closed.”
McConnell blasted congressional Democrats’ obsession with Russian collusion during remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday, saying the report “morphed into a last hope that maybe they’d never have to come to terms with the American people’s choice of a President.”
The White House announced Thursday that President Trump would exercise executive privilege over the entire Mueller report, hours before the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about his handling of the report or release a full unredacted version to the public.
“We’ve talked for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said Thursday. “We are now in it.”
