Trump on new investigation: ‘I cooperate all the time with everybody’
President Trump on Monday suggested he would cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee’s new investigation, but blasted the sweeping probe of his campaign, administration and businesses as a “hoax.”
“I cooperate all the time with everybody,” Trump said when asked if he would comply with the investigation formally launched on Monday.
The comments came just over an hour after House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced a sprawling investigation, which includes more than 80 requests for documents from current and former White House officials and associates of the president.
“You know the beautiful thing — no collusion. It’s all a hoax,” Trump said during a gathering in the State Dining Room for the North Dakota State University’s championship football team.
As some players and guests chuckled at his comments, the president told them “you’re going to learn about that as you grow older. It’s a political hoax. There’s no collusion. There’s no anything.”
Pointing to a buffet table piled high with McDonald’s hamburgers and Chick-fil-A sandwiches, Trump concluded by saying, “Folks, go and eat up.”
But Nadler’s probe covers much more than the question of whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 election, the central focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The Judiciary panel is also exploring alleged obstruction of justice, public corruption and abuses of power in the most expansive congressional investigation of Trump since Democrats took control of the House in January.
“President Trump has evaded accountability for his near-daily attacks on our basic legal, ethical, and constitutional rules and norms,” Nadler said in a statement. “Investigating these threats to the rule of law is an obligation of Congress and a core function of the House Judiciary Committee.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders acknowledged earlier Monday that Nadler sent document requests to the West Wing, but would only say that “the counsel’s office and relevant White House officials will review it and respond at the appropriate time.”
Nadler is demanding documents from Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, former White House communications director Hope Hicks, former White House counsel Don McGahn and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, as well as members of the president’s family and real estate company.
The wide-ranging probe is seen as possibly laying the groundwork for impeachment, but Nadler said Sunday that his panel would conduct its investigation before deciding whether to proceed.
“Before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American public that it ought to happen,” Nadler said during an interview on ABC News’s “This Week.”