House Democrats voted Thursday to subpoena a dozen Trump administration officials, including Jared Kushner, to obtain information about the treatment of illegal immigrants on the southern border, as well as alleged obstruction of justice by the president.
The 21-12 vote fell along party lines and is likely to escalate the ongoing battle between Democrats and the Trump administration over access to witnesses and documents related to the border situation, as well as former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into alleged Russian collusion with the 2016 Trump campaign.
Those who do not comply with the subpoena could be subjected to a contempt-of-Congress vote.
The dozen include Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former chief of staff John Kelly, one-time Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Trump tweeted about the vote Thursday morning.
“Now the Democrats have asked to see 12 more people who have already spent hours with Robert Mueller, and spent a fortune on lawyers in so doing,” Trump tweeted. “How many bites at the apple do they get before working on Border Loopholes and Asylum.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said before the vote that the subpoenas are needed because the Trump administration has ignored requests for information about corruption allegations and the conditions along the border.
“This committee cannot sit idly by,” the New York Democrat said. “There must be oversight and accountability.”
Nadler said the panel wants to know more about reports that Trump offered former DHS acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan a pardon if McAleenan faced legal consequences for closing the southern border.
“For a president to order an administration official to violate the law and say don’t worry, if you violated the law I’ll pardon you, would be a terrible dereliction of duty,” Nadler said.
Republicans opposed the action.
Ranking member Doug Collins, R-Georgia, called the subpoenas “not only premature, but unjustified.”
Nadler has not even requested testimony or information from three of the individuals the plan now plans to subpoena.
Another top Republican on the panel, Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio, said the committee is focused on investigating the Trump administration at the expense of finding a bipartisan deal on the nation’s asylum laws that are attracting massive surges of illegal immigrants to the southern border.
“Rather than wasting more time on this fishing expedition we could be spending time on things that really matter, that would actually benefit the American people,” Chabot said.
