We’re still weeks away from Democrats taking the gavel in the House but many are already talking up investigating Donald Trump.
From Axios: House Democrats plan to investigate whether President Trump abused White House power by targeting — and trying to punish with “instruments of state power” to punish the press.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Ca.) told Axios the Democrats will be looking at two cases specifically, The Washington Post and CNN.
1)Schiff said Trump “was secretly meeting with the postmaster [general] in an effort to browbeat the postmaster [general] into raising postal rates on Amazon.”
“This appears to be an effort by the president to use the instruments of state power to punish Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post,” Schiff said. Jeff Bezos is founder, chairman and CEO of Amazon, and owns the Washington Post.
2) Schiff said Congress also need to examine whether Trump attempted to block AT&T’s merger with Time Warner as payback to CNN.
“We don’t know, for example, whether the effort to hold up the merger of the parent of CNN was a concern over antitrust, or whether this was an effort merely to punish CNN,” Schiff said.
📺 @Axios on @HBO, 6:30 p.m. ET/PT: @RepAdamSchiff and House Democrats plan to investigate whether Trump abused White House power by targeting — and trying to punish with "instruments of state power" — The Washington Post and CNN https://t.co/sWdNEryUI7
— Jim VandeHei (@JimVandeHei) November 11, 2018
Schiff will lead the House Intelligence Committee in the new Congress next January.