Trump Says Democrats No Longer Want Carter Page’s Testimony
Former adviser ‘blows away’ Democrats’ case against him, president tweets
Updated 1:22 p.m. | President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused Democrats of resisting testimony from Carter Page, his former campaign adviser, because he “blows away” allegations they have made.
Page told the top Republican and Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee last Tuesday that he would testify as part of their probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. But Trump now says the minority party has changed its mind about hearing from Page.
Trump alluded to uncited reports in tweeting that “the Democrats, who have excoriated Carter Page about Russia, don’t want him to testify.”
The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, California Rep. Adam B. Schiff said Wednesday that he and Texas Rep. K. Michael Conway, the investigation’s top Republican, “have agreed to review relevant documents before interviewing witnesses, as you would expect in a comprehensive investigation. And while we anticipate interviews to begin shortly, we have agreed that the pace of those interviews will be dictated by the needs of the investigation and not the preferences of outside parties.”
On Tuesday, Page said he learned from the Intelligence panel that he “might not be immediately afforded the opportunity” to address the committee.
In two tweets, the president went on to say that this alleged change of heart by Democratic members comes because they have concluded Page “blows away their … case against him.”
So now it is reported that the Democrats, who have excoriated Carter Page about Russia, don’t want him to testify. He blows away their….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017
…case against him & now wants to clear his name by showing “the false or misleading testimony by James Comey, John Brennan…” Witch Hunt!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017
Trump, referring to the FBI director he fired and the Obama administration’s last CIA director, wrote that his former adviser “wants to clear his name by showing “the false or misleading testimony by James Comey, John Brennan…”
He ended his second tweet on the matter by again referring to several congressional investigations and the FBI’s probe into Russia as a collective “Witch Hunt!”
Trump’s latest tweetstorm came a day after his press secretary, Sean Spicer, refused to answer questions about whether then-candidate and President-elect Trump knew about “back channel” communications his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner reportedly wanted to establish with Moscow before they entered the White House.
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Notably, Spicer would neither confirm nor deny that Kushner attempted to go around the outgoing Obama administration.
Trump’s tweets came just minutes before a new poll was released showing growing support among American voters for the House to start impeachment proceedings.
Forty-three percent of those surveyed by Morning Consult and Politico said they want the impeachment process against Trump to begin. That’s up from the previous version of the same poll, which had the figure at 38 percent. Notably, however, most voters (45 percent) do not want impeachment proceedings.