Mutually assured destruction? Trump threatens Senate probes into Dems, as House investigations loom: 'Two can play that game'

RT
Wed, 07 Nov 2018 18:40 UTC

© Getty Images/Brooks Kraft

Donald Trump threatened the Democrats with Senate probes into alleged leaks of "classified information," while the party that has just taken over the House vows to hold the president "accountable."

Trump warned the Democrats against "wasting" taxpayer money on House investigations into his administration, issuing a thinly-veiled threat on Twitter.

"If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!" Trump tweeted. The president stopped short of naming the exact leaks he meant.

The presidential "warning" follows the midterm election success of the Democrats, who secured a majority in the House of the Representatives. The Republicans, however, retained the upper hand in the Senate.

The House victory seems to have inspired the Democrats, as several of them have already vowed to launch probes into Trump's activities. Representative Elijah Cummings, who is expected to lead the House Oversight Committee, promised to finally hold the administration "accountable."

"The most important thing for the Oversight Committee to do is to get back to regular order by obtaining documents and interviewing witnesses, and actually holding the Trump administration accountable to the American people," Cummings told Reuters.

The probes will be conducted in a proper fashion, and no, the Democrats' activities won't resemble a medieval inquisition, according to Rep. Gerry Connolly. Securing the majority will restore checks and balances in the government, which has entirely lacked "oversight and accountability" for the past two years, he added.

"We can't look like Torquemada in the Spanish Inquisition. It has to be fact-based, methodical, meticulous and well-grounded. And judicious. But I believe we are more than capable of doing that. We've done it before," Connolly told CNN.

Comment: ZeroHedge adds:

Last December, President Trump's son, Don Jr. called on the House intelligence Committee to investigate information that was leaked from his closed interview the week before.

"This committee should determine whether any member or staff member violated the rules by leaking information to the media concerning the interview or by purposely providing inaccurate information which led to significant misreporting," said Trump Jr.'s attorney, Alan Futerfas.

In addition, his letter charges that members of the House committee "began disseminating wildly inaccurate information" to reporters that formed the basis of an erroneous CNN report on an email that Mr. Trump and other members of the Trump campaign received in September 2016.

The CNN report relied on two unnamed sources who described an email purporting to show that Mr. Trump and other campaign officials had received advance notice about a cache of hacked Democratic documents that were about to be posted by WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group. In fact, the email had been sent the day after the cache was posted publicly. CNN later corrected its story. -NYTimes

"These disturbing circumstances warrant examination," concluded Futerfas.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who will lead the House Intelligence Committee, told the Los Angeles Times on Monday that he will revive the investigation into so-called "Russian collusion" - vowing to go after Trump's personal business interests.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)

"The president has sought to keep that off limits, but if that's the leverage Russians pose that's a real threat to our country," said Schiff.

Schiff insisted in March that there was "more than circumstantial evidence" connecting Trump to Russia, however despite the best efforts of the US-UK-Australian intelligence community and the DOJ/FBI's multi-year counterintelligence "sting" and now probe, no such evidence has emerged.

Maxine Waters

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), meanwhile, who has repeatedly called to impeach President Trump, is set to lead the House Financial Services Committee. As chair, she will be able to subpoena officials at financial regulatory agencies for testimony and other information.

In September, Waters renewed her calls to impeach Trump - and told a crowed of constituents at a rally that she would "get" Vice President Mike Pence once Trump was gone.

Vice-President Mike Pence

"I had a conversation here today with someone [who] asked, 'Well, what about Pence? If you are able to impeach, Pence will be worse,'" said Waters. "And I said, 'Look, one at a time. You knock one down, one at a time. You knock one down, and we'll be ready for Pence. We'll get him, too."