Senate intelligence committee issues subpoena for Donald Trump Jr. to testify again

Updated at 7:40 p.m. ET

The Senate intelligence committee has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, to testify again before the panel, according to a source familiar with the subpoena.

He met with the committee in December 2017 about his participation in a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Russians offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., declined to comment on the matter, but a spokeswoman for the committee told NPR, “We do not discuss the details of witness engagements with the committee. Throughout the investigation, the committee has reserved the right to recall witnesses for additional testimony as needed, as every witness and witness counsel has been made aware.”

Trump Jr. wouldn’t be the first in the president’s immediate family to return to Capitol Hill for questioning. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, met with the intelligence committee in July 2017 and again in late March 2019.

But Axios, which first reported the news, reports this is the first time one of Trump’s children has been directly subpoenaed — notably by a committee led by the GOP majority.

Donald Trump Jr. doesn’t work in the White House, unlike Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Kushner’s wife, but he is a visible surrogate, appearing at campaign rallies and vigorously defending his father on social media. His girlfriend, former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, is a senior adviser to Trump’s reelection campaign.

News of the subpoena comes as the administration spars with House Democrats over authority and access to information related to the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The White House is asserting executive privilege as the House Judiciary Committee seeks the full contents of Robert Mueller’s report, which was released with redactions on April 18. The panel voted Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt for withholding some of the material, sending the resolution to the full House. Barr refused to testify before the Democratic-controlled committee last week after a dispute over the hearing’s format.

The administration also “directed” former White House counsel Don McGahn not to comply with the committee’s subpoena for documents on Tuesday.

According to the Mueller report, special counsel investigators could not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with Russia. The report was noncommittal on whether President Trump had obstructed justice, though Barr has concluded he did not. Democrats are seeking additional details from the report on how the Justice Department reached those conclusions.

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