Trump ‘surprised’ Senate Intelligence subpoenaed his son

President Trump said Thursday he was “very surprised” to learn his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was subpoenaed by the GOP-run Senate Intelligence Committee.

“Frankly for my son, after being exonerated, to now get a subpoena to go again and speak again after close to 20 hours of telling everybody that would listen about a nothing meeting, yeah I’m surprised,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

{mosads}He asserted that Trump Jr. is a “good person,” but declined to say whether he should fight the subpoena.

“I was very surprised. I saw Richard Burr saying there was no collusion two or three weeks ago,” Trump said, referring to the North Carolina GOP senator who is chairman of the Intelligence Committee. “He went outside and somebody asked, ‘no there was no collusion, we found no collusion.’”

“But I was very surprised to see my son — my son’s a very good person. Works very hard. The last thing he needs is Washington, D.C.”

The Intelligence Committee’s subpoena for Trump Jr. was reported Wednesday. It is the first subpoena for one of Trump’s children, and drew criticism from some Republican lawmakers.

Trump Jr. already testified behind closed doors before the House and Senate Intelligence panels in December 2017 as part of their investigations into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election. Neither committee has released a transcript of his closed-door hearing.

“My son is a good person. My son testified for hours and hours,” Trump said. “My son was totally exonerated by [special counsel Robert] Mueller, who frankly does not like Donald Trump. Me, this Donald Trump.”

Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, declined to comment on the subpoena Thursday, but emphasized that the panel reserves the right to call back witnesses to answer additional questions or address “inconsistencies.”

“I’m not going to comment on specific witnesses,” Warner told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor event. “I will say that we have seen literally hundreds and hundreds of witnesses and the committee has been very clear with every one that we reserve the right to bring witnesses back if we have additional questions or there’s inconsistencies.”

The committee has been investigating Russian interference since January 2017. Burr has said he expects the panel to wrap up in the coming months after interviewing remaining witnesses and writing a final report on the findings.

Warner said Thursday that the committee is interested in speaking with special counsel Robert Mueller and reviewing the counterintelligence information underlying his report before concluding their probe.