FIRM BEHIND
Trump file takes issue with subpoena.
WASHINGTON — A political research firm behind a dossier of allegations about President Donald Trump’s connections to Russia is balking at subpoenas from the House Intelligence Committee, with a lawyer for the firm questioning the legitimacy of the panel’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Joshua Levy, a lawyer for Fusion GPS, said in a letter to the panel Monday that House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes is acting “in bad faith.” Nunes stepped back from the Russia investigation after criticism that he was too close to the White House, but he is still chairman of the panel and signs its subpoenas.
Levy signaled that the company won’t cooperate with the panel. He said in the letter that if any of the employees subpoenaed — Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and two others with the firm — are compelled to appear before the committee, they will exercise their Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to testify. He also portrayed the subpoena as an attack on their free-speech rights.
In a statement, Levy said Nunes “would rather use his office to learn about who funded opposition research on Donald Trump than whether the Russian government interfered with our election. Americans of all political stripes should find his actions chilling.”
The dossier contends that the Russian government had amassed compromising in-
formation about Trump and had been engaged in a yearslong effort to support and assist him. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators — who are probing whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to sway the election — have spoken with the former British spy who helped compile it, The Associated Press has reported.
Last summer, Simpson spoke privately for about 10 hours to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Levy, the firm’s attorney, said the firm is also cooperating on a voluntary basis with the Senate Intelligence Committee. Both panels also are investigating Russian meddling in the election.
Also on Monday, the White House rebuffed a House committee’s bipartisan request for detailed information about the Trump administration’s use of private email for government work and executive branch use of government and chartered aircraft.
The White House use of private email has become part of congressional probes into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, as well as into whether the administration followed federal laws requiring such records be preserved.
News accounts earlier this year revealed that private email accounts used by the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, both top-level advisers, had been used for White House business. Those revelations came after Trump made his opponent Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and handling of classified information as secretary of state a cornerstone of his attacks on her during the 2016 presidential campaign.
In two letters Monday from White House congressional liaison Marc Short, the top Republican and Democrat on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform were given little information sought on either topic.
“The White House and covered employees endeavor to comply with all relevant laws and consults with the National Archives and Records Administration,” Short wrote in one letter about email accounts.
The chairman of the committee, South Carolina Republican Trey Gowdy, couldn’t be reached for comment through aides.
“This gives hypocrisy a bad name,” Rep. Gerald Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, said in an interview.
“Their refusal, dismissal of our request for information on emails and travel is jaw-dropping, very disturbing,” Connolly said, adding that if the White House won’t provide the documents, the chairman should consider sending subpoenas.