The chairman of President Trump’s inaugural committee says he will cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee in a probe whose subjects include potential foreign money sources for the January 2017 festivities.
Tom Barrack, founder of private equity real estate firm Colony Capital and a close friend of the president, told CNBC that he would “fully cooperate with the Committee’s important work as he has with all government inquiries.”
The Judiciary Committee and three other Democratic-controlled House panels on Monday sent out 81 letters to individuals tied to Trump. The letters requested documents and information on a range of matters, including “the contents of meetings between President Trump and Vladimir Putin.”
[Opinion: Byron York: House Democrats send message: Impeachment is on]
The letter to Barrack requests documents from “any foreign government discussing, offering, or providing, or being solicited to discuss, offer, or provide, any present or emolument of any kind whatever on or after November 8, 2016” to Trump, his associates, or to his inaugural committee.
It specifically requests “all documents” relating to the “Trump campaign or Trump transition contacts or communications with, or on behalf of, or regarding Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, or Saudi Arabia.”
Trump denounced the letters in a Tuesday morning tweet, calling the investigation “the greatest overreach in the history of our Country”, adding “The Dems are obstructing justice and will not get anything done. A big, fat, fishing expedition desperately in search of a crime, when in fact the real crime is what the Dems are doing, and have done!”
The greatest overreach in the history of our Country. The Dems are obstructing justice and will not get anything done. A big, fat, fishing expedition desperately in search of a crime, when in fact the real crime is what the Dems are doing, and have done!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2019
The inaugural committee was subpoenaed by the attorney general for the District of Columbia last week. Attorney General Karl Racine, a Democrat, is scrutinizing how the committee used the more than $100 million it raised.
