Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Democrats aren't waiting
Speaker 1: to learn what's in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report.
Speaker 1: Today they escalated their own investigation of Trump with requests
Speaker 1: for documents from eighty one individuals, agencies, and entities linked
Speaker 1: to the president. And joining us now is Chris Strom,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News Justice Department reporter, and Chris tell us about
Speaker 1: how sweeping uh this new request is. Well. The Democrats
Speaker 1: launched a major offensive today against the White House and
Speaker 1: anybody associated with Trump. They made a sweeping request um
Speaker 1: there everything from Trump's business dealings to activities that Trump
Speaker 1: was Party two while while in office. Everything from the
Speaker 1: firing of James Coney to UM to the Trump Power
Speaker 1: meeting with the with the Russians, to the Trump organization
Speaker 1: business dealings. This is a major, major, you know, offenses
Speaker 1: that the Democrats have opened up, and it's gonna take
Speaker 1: months of back and forth and most likely will also
Speaker 1: involve some some court battles as well. Are they looking
Speaker 1: for anything different from Mueller or the Southern District of Manhattan.
Speaker 1: What the Democrats are seeking as much broader than Muller
Speaker 1: is doing. And we don't have a you know, the
Speaker 1: clear insight into into what the s D and why
Speaker 1: you know, the prosecutors in New York are doing. But
Speaker 1: by all accounts, while the Southern Agist New York has
Speaker 1: a broader investigation into Trump, the Democrats are still even
Speaker 1: going much much broader than than what the prosecutors are doing.
Speaker 1: Are they setting up impeachment at this point? They say
Speaker 1: the they're just doing the fact finding. I think everybody
Speaker 1: who's looking at this knows that that the that the
Speaker 1: end that the end game might be impeachment. Um, they're
Speaker 1: certainly not ruling out impeachment. What the chairman of the
Speaker 1: committee is saying at this point is that they need
Speaker 1: to collect all the evidence and figure out if their
Speaker 1: war crime that can be shown, you know, with with
Speaker 1: evidence or impeachable offenses. What is the criminal act is
Speaker 1: might be different from what's to impeach impeachable offense, But
Speaker 1: they say that they're doing the groundwork. Now, they're not
Speaker 1: ruling out impeachment, but they say that they need to
Speaker 1: get everything together to figure out if the impeachment is necessary.
Speaker 1: So talk about some of the people who are getting
Speaker 1: swept up in this. I mean what the president's sons,
Speaker 1: um former aids, current aids. There's uh, you know a
Speaker 1: number of different people who are involved. Uh, certainly you
Speaker 1: know Don Jr. And Eric Trump and are are involved.
Speaker 1: They're seeking information from from some family members. They're seeking
Speaker 1: information from people associated with Trump's businesses, such as Alan Weizelberg,
Speaker 1: who's the chief financial officer for the Trump organization. They've
Speaker 1: got to requests out to the Trump organization itself, people
Speaker 1: on the business side, people in the family, people who
Speaker 1: were in the White House and might have witnessed activities
Speaker 1: that could constitute corruption or obstruction of justice. Those are
Speaker 1: all uh the individuals who are who the committee seeking
Speaker 1: documents from. And it sets up an interesting media case
Speaker 1: as well, because they're also asking for documents from the
Speaker 1: publisher of the National Enquirer. That's right, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and if we remained to be seen, who's going to
Speaker 1: fight in how the subpoena requests will be contested? The
Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee might have to go to court in order
Speaker 1: to get these documents. Is there any overlap here between them,
Speaker 1: the Judiciary Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, and the Oversight
Speaker 1: Committee that Michael Cohen testified to last week. Yes, there
Speaker 1: is an overlap. The Oversight Committee had the first you know,
Speaker 1: public hearing with with Michael Cohen, and as a result
Speaker 1: of that, the chairman of that committee identified some additional
Speaker 1: people that they want to talk to. One of them
Speaker 1: is on in Wiselberg. Now the Judiciary Committee also wants
Speaker 1: to hear from Wisberg. So I think that the the
Speaker 1: congressional committees are going to have to be conflict a
Speaker 1: little bit, and they're not necessarily doing that right now.
Speaker 1: And then there's a House Intelligence Committee which is said
Speaker 1: that they're going to go into uh, you know, Trump's
Speaker 1: business dealings of in any any money that Trump received
Speaker 1: from Russian as well. The Judiciary Committee is looking for
Speaker 1: that information as well. So at some point the committees
Speaker 1: might have to figure out how to deconflict. Certainly, the
Speaker 1: people who are receiving these requests are gonna look at
Speaker 1: them and say, you know, there's some duplication here. And
Speaker 1: also the committees need to be conflict with what's was,
Speaker 1: when Muller is doing, and what the prosecutors in New
Speaker 1: York are doing. And so you know, the coming months
Speaker 1: for people are are going to be sorting through who's
Speaker 1: doing what and in where the centers of gravity or
Speaker 1: and in the meantime, I just want to seem that
Speaker 1: the President couldn't possibly step up his strident rhetoric even
Speaker 1: more against Robert Mueller's probe. He did so over the weekend.
Speaker 1: This being a family program, we can't really get into
Speaker 1: what he called the Mueller investigation, but but the rhetoric
Speaker 1: just seems to ratch it up by day now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: certainly Trump is trying to paint uh you know, Muller's
Speaker 1: investigation in the most negative lights you can and talk
Speaker 1: about how Mueller is conflicted, in his whole team is conflicted.
Speaker 1: It's important to point out I think that every time
Speaker 1: Muhler has been challenged in court, he's one basically his
Speaker 1: his authority in his jurisdiction have been challenged, and judges
Speaker 1: have have ruled a favor of Muller. Certainly, Muller has
Speaker 1: already indicted, you know, more than more than thirty people.
Speaker 1: He's won convictions and guilty please, So Trump is, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to paint Mueller in a bad light. More keeps
Speaker 1: progressing along, and we do expect Maller to be submitting
Speaker 1: its final reports soon. We don't know exactly when it's
Speaker 1: gonna be. And that's also going to ignite a battle
Speaker 1: over disclosure because it's a question of how much of
Speaker 1: that report and how much of Waller's finding, because they're
Speaker 1: actually going to be set the converse that they public.
Speaker 1: Chris Strom, Bloomberg News Justice Department reporter, Thanks very much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast.
Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brasso.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. Yeah,