Feinstein: Mueller says Senate Judiciary can interview Trump Jr., Manafort

Special counsel Robert Mueller has given the Senate Judiciary Committee the green light to publicly interview Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (Calif.), said Tuesday.

It is unclear whether either potential witness will accept an invitation, though both have said they are willing to cooperate with investigators looking into Russian meddling in the presidential election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has indicated he is willing to subpoena both men if necessary.

{mosads}The panel has been sparring with the Senate Intelligence Committee over which committee will get first crack at Trump Jr. after he published emails detailing planning for a 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer offering political dirt on then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

The OK from Mueller gives the Judiciary Committee the latitude to proceed with its probe into the meeting, which took place on June 9, 2016, at Trump Tower in New York.

Congressional investigators have a longstanding practice of keeping out of the way of any concurrent federal investigations through a practice known as “deconfliction.”

Mueller has previously met with senior members of the Judiciary panel, which has broad jurisdiction over the Justice Department and the FBI and is one of several committees investigating Russian involvement in the election.

Six other attendees at the meeting have been identified: the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and her translator, Anatoli Samochornov; Ike Kaveladze, an American-based representative of a Russian real estate firm; Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and who is now a senior White House adviser Jared Kushner; Rob Goldstone, an intermediary who set up the meeting; and Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist who was working to lift sanctions imposed on Moscow over human rights violations.