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Today, following yesterday's conviction on eight federal charges of President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and the guilty plea of Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to eight felony counts, saying he committed some of them, "at the direction of" Donald Trump, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, released the following statement on the need for urgent Congressional action:
"Yesterday's felony convictions of President Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, show this is no "WITCH HUNT" and make it even more unconscionable that Chairman Goodlatte and the Republican Leadership are continuing to sit by and rehash old conspiracy theories instead of taking action. House Republicans may be willing to abet President Trump’s worst behavior, but I am not.
"I call on Chairman Goodlatte to hold immediate hearings on President Trump’s persistent, venomous attacks on the Department of Justice and the FBI. It is clear that the President hopes to hedge against the investigation by undermining the investigators. Yesterday's guilty plea by the President's longtime personal attorney adds further concerns regarding ongoing efforts by President Trump to undermine or impede the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. What is less clear, however, is how these vital institutions that President Trump and House Republicans consistently attack will weather the storm of this selfish, and possibly illegal, strategy.
"I again call on the Chairman to take up H.R. 5476, the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act, which Republican Leadership in the House and the Senate have woefully ignored. The Special Counsel will need our help now more than ever, and this bipartisan measure will protect his work from an increasingly reckless Administration.
"And I call on the Republicans to suspend their year-long ‘investigation,’ which has largely been a cover to undermine the work of Special Counsel Mueller, immediately. We have reviewed hours of testimony and hundreds of thousands of documents, and the Republicans remain wholly unable to prove that Secretary Clinton should be in jail or that the FBI misled the FISA court. Enough is enough. The President of the United States is now directly implicated in a criminal conspiracy, numerous members of both his campaign and administration have been convicted, pleaded guilty to felonies, or are ensnared in corruption investigations, and the Judiciary Committee has real work to do.
"The Congress stands at a crossroads. Democrats are poised to take action to respond to this culture of corruption that has taken hold under Mr. Trump and Republican Congressional Majorities. It is not too late for my Republican colleagues to put our country ahead of their politics and join us in our work."
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