Amid increased scrutiny into President Donald Trump's inauguration and the finances behind it, the House Intelligence Committee seeks to interview Stephanie Wolkoff, one of the event's top planners.
Wolkoff, a close friend and former adviser to first lady Melania Trump, has received a letter from the committee requesting an interview, a source confirmed to the New York Daily News on Wednesday.
Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has long been eyeing the 2017 inauguration, dating back to January when he said possible "illicit foreign funding or involvement in the inauguration" is "a matter of interest and concern."
"Whenever a foreign nation uses its financial wealth to violate the laws of our country, it undermines our democracy," he said in a statement at the time. "When another country does so in concert with U.S. persons, it carries the additional risk of compromising them and presents a particularly acute counterintelligence risk."
A Daily News source stressed, however, that the inaugural committee itself has not yet been contacted.
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office subpoenaed documents from the committee in February as part of its investigation into what perks may have been promised in exchange for donations, including photographs with the president.
Samuel Patten, a consultant linked to former Trump campaign aide Paul Manafort, pleaded guilty in August of using a so-called "straw purchaser" for Konstantin Kilimnik, a "prominent Ukraine oligarch," to attend the inauguration.
Patten asked a third party to buy four tickets to inaugural events on behalf of Kilimnik, who was barred by federal law from buying the tickets himself. Kilimnik then reimbursed the straw purchaser $50,000 for the tickets, the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, D.C., said.
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