If Democrats take the House in the midterm elections, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, intends to probe whether Russians used the Trump Organization to hide or funnel dirty money.
“There was one issue we were not allowed to look at and the Senate hasn’t been either that concerns me a great deal and that is the issue of whether Russians were laundering money through the Trump Organization and [if] that is the leverage they have over the president,” Schiff told the Hill Wednesday. “Someone needs to determine whether those allegations are true or they are not. That certainly would be a priority for me.”
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee in April released their final report on foreign interference in the 2016 election, their inquiry finding that there was no “collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.”
House Democrats on the panel, however, have continued investigating possible ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Kremlin, despite not having subpoena powers as members of the party in the minority.
Democrats only have to flip 23 congressional districts in November to return to power in the House. Republicans are using the threat of the number of congressional probes Democrats could launch if they win the House as an incentive to turn out voters.
Democratic lawmakers, such as Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, have written to the Treasury Department for more information on business or real estate deals President Trump or the Trump Organization made with Russians. For example, Wyden in February inquired about a 2008 Palm Beach property sale to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev. Trump bought the estate for $41.35 million in 2004 before selling it to Rybolovlev for $95 million in 2008.
