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