Dems ready to issue subpoena for phone records linked to Trump Tower meeting

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are preparing to issue a subpoena as soon as Thursday to obtain phone records linked to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer, two sources familiar with the matter tell The Hill.

The subpoena will be the first order Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) will issue as committee chairman, and the process of preparing the order came one day after the committee became formally constituted.

{mosads}Details about the specifics of the subpoena remain unclear, but the order goes to the heart of the committee’s plan to investigate ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The Trump Tower meeting in particular has come under scrutiny after Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-White House campaign manager Paul Manafort met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer during the 2016 election in an effort to obtain dirt on the Clinton campaign.

For months, questions have swirled about who Trump Jr. talked to on a blocked number ahead of the meeting.

CNN reported earlier this month that Senate investigators have learned that Trump Jr.’s phone calls were not made to his father.

Sources told the outlet the Senate Intelligence Committee had received records that Trump Jr. talked to two of his business associates in that phone call.

A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment.

The subpoena will be the first of what is expected to be many as Democrats on the panel scrutinize whether foreign actors have sought to gain leverage or even influence President Trump and those in his inner circle, according to the parameters of the probe Schiff laid out Wednesday.