The House is now investigating whether President Trump gave false answers in the written responses he provided to former special counsel Robert Mueller as part of the Russia investigation.
House general counsel Douglas Letter requested in federal court Monday that secret grand jury evidence from Mueller’s investigation be provided to the House for its impeachment investigation into Trump, citing concerns that the president may have lied in his written responses to Mueller.
“Did the President lie? Was the President not truthful in his responses to the Mueller investigation?” Letter asked in a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, calling that information “a key part of the impeachment inquiry.”
“There is evidence, very sadly, that the president might have provided untruthful answers,” Letter said. “The House is trying to determine whether the current president should remain in office. This is unbelievably serious and it’s happening right now, very fast.”
The concerns center around Trump’s statement to Mueller that he has no memory of discussing Wikileaks with longtime Trump associate Roger Stone, who was convicted Friday on seven counts including obstruction and making false statements.
However, former Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates testified to investigators that Trump and Stone had discussed incoming information in 2016 that would be potentially helpful to the Trump campaign, just as Stone was attempting to get information about hacked Democratic documents that Wikileaks had obtained.
Letter cited Stone’s conviction as well as Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen’s admission last year that he lied to Congress.
“We have at least two people who have already been convicted of lying to Congress. And what are they lying about? They’re lying about things that go directly to the Mueller report,” Letter said.
The House has also not been allowed to see what former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort told the grand jury regarding Trump and Wikileaks. That information remained redacted even in the less-redacted version of Mueller’s final report released to lawmakers.