Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, blamed Republicans on the panel for not issuing a subpoena for Donald Trump Jr.’s phone records to discover if his father, then-candidate Donald Trump, granted him permission to meet with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in June 2016.
The California Democrat said that a blocked number appeared in Trump Jr.’s phone records shortly after securing the Trump Tower meeting — a number Schiff argues could have been the president’s.
The blocked number appears between two other calls that were exchanged between Trump Jr. and Azerbaijani singer and businessman Emin Agalarov.
“We sought to determine whether that number belonged to the president, because we also ascertained that then-candidate Trump used a blocked number,” Schiff told the Washington Post. “That would tell us whether Don Jr. sought his father’s permission to take the meeting, and [whether] that was the purpose of that call.”
According to Schiff, Republican members “refused” to issue a subpoena for the phone records, despite the urging of Democrats.
“They didn’t want to know whether he had informed his father and sought his permission to take that meeting with the Russian,” he said.
Trump claims he was unaware of the Trump Tower meeting, which has become a point of interest in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting under the assumption that he would would receive “dirt” on democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, although he claims the meeting did not render damaging information on Clinton and instead centered around adoptions of Russian children.
The House Intelligence Committee majority published a full report with redactions Friday that blames the Trump and Clinton campaigns for “poor judgement and ill-considered actions,” but ultimately the panel found no proof the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin.
“While the Committee found no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded, coordinated, or conspired with the Russian government, the investigation did find poor judgment and ill-considered actions by the Trump and Clinton campaigns,” the report says.
Over the course of the yearlong investigation, Schiff and his fellow Democrats condemned the Republicans on the committee for how they led the effort. The Democrats also argue that the probe was completed prematurely. Schiff brought this up again Friday following the release of the full report.
“Throughout the investigation, Committee Republicans chose not to seriously investigate — or even see, when in plain sight — evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, instead adopting the role of defense counsel for key investigation witnesses,” Schiff said in a statement.
