The House Oversight Committee asked prosecutors for the Southern District of New York whether they held off indicting President Trump on campaign finance violations because of Justice Department guidelines that recommend against charging a sitting president.
“The Committee is seeking to determine whether internal Department of Justice policy guidelines against indicting a sitting President — the same policy that prevented Special Counsel Robert Mueller from bringing an indictment against President Trump for obstruction of justice in the Russian election interference investigation — played any role in your office’s decision not to indict President Trump for these hush money crimes,” Chairman Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, wrote in a letter to prosecutors Friday.
“The Office of the President should not be used as a shield for criminal conduct,” Cummings said.
Cummings asked the prosecutors to turn over evidence related to the hush money payments made by Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen to women who alleged they had affairs with the president. The payments were made during the 2016 presidential campaign. He also inquired about any immunity deals made in the case.
Cohen is now serving a prison sentence for violating campaign finance laws, bank and tax fraud, and lying to Congress.
Federal search warrants that were unsealed Thursday suggest Trump’s campaign press secretary Hope Hicks and Trump himself may have been aware of the payments to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
Trump has said he did not know about the payments and denies having an affair with Daniels.
Hicks claims she did not learn of the allegations until early November 2016. Her attorney said Friday that reports she was involved in conversations about the hush money payments or knew they were taking place “are simply wrong.”
“Ms. Hicks stands by her truthful testimony that she first became aware of this issue in early November 2016, as the result of press inquiries,” her attorney Robert Trout said.
