Donald Trump's foreign financial links and possible connections to Russia are being investigated by the House intelligence committee, its new chairman Adam Schiff has announced.
The House Intelligence Committee is among multiple panels looking into Russian interference and the potential collusion with Trump's 2016 campaign, alongside the Senate Intelligence Committee and the US Special Counsel's Office under the US Department of Justice.
This latest development comes as former mayor of Moscow confirmed Donald Trump met with officials in Russia in the 1990s to discuss a possible building project after archival footage of the meeting was posted online.
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One of the biggest potential threats to Mr Trump now that Mr Schiff and the Democrats are running the show in the House Intelligence Committee comes from their new ability to subpoena a wide variety of records related to the president.
And, while Republicans who previously controlled the investigation did not make headlines for their deployment of that power, Mr Schiff has indicated that he has some big plans for those powers.
That includes the translator who was present during Mr Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017, where the president reportedly took the notes from his translator. A subpoena like that would likely be met with swift legal action from the White House.
Mr Schiff and the Democrats have also reportedly considered a subpoena for former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who has been cooperating with federal investigators and pleaded guilty last year to a pretty long list of crimes related to his work for the president. Among those crimes were major campaign finance violations related to a payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election (which Cohen said he made at the behest of Mr Trump).
More recently, Cohen has indicated that he lied to Congress about ongoing talks with Russian sources about a proposed Trump real estate deal in Moscow. Cohen said that the talks actually extended much further into the 2016 presidential campaign than he or Mr Trump previously disclosed — which could raise any number of potential conflicts if the president were currying favour from a foreign government while running for America's highest office.
The launch of the House Intelligence Committee investigation actually marks the second investigation by the committee, after Republicans ended their version in March of last year.
Republicans were often seen as less willing to investigate the issues in a way that could threaten Mr Trump, who is a president representing their party.
That previous probe was ended with Republicans saying that they had found no evidence of collusion between Russians and the Trump campaign — which Democrats at the time took issue with, saying the call was premature.
Mr Trump this morning went after the investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign, and Mr Schiff in particular, on Thursday morning.
"So now Congressman Adam Schiff announces, after having found zero Russian Collusion, that he is going to be looking at every aspect of my life, both financial and personal, even though there is no reason to be doing so," Mr Trump tweeted. "Never happened before! Unlimited Presidential Harassment..."
The president has often claimed that no collusion has been found between his campaign and Russian state actors, and there is no public evidence so far to show that there was a conspiracy. Meanwhile, dozens of people have been charged by Mr Mueller's investigation in the nearly two years since it began.
The president has often claimed that no collusion has been found between his campaign and Russian state actors, and there is no public evidence so far to show that there was a conspiracy. Meanwhile, dozens of people have been charged by Mr Mueller's investigation in the nearly two years since it began.
One of the latest developments comes out of the House of Representatives, where Democrats are newly empowered after taking control of the chamber during the 2018 midterm elections.
Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, announced on Wednesday that his committee would go forward in spite of the president's criticism of "ridiculous partisan investigations" during his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
“We’re going to do our jobs and the president needs to do his,” Mr Schiff said. “Our job involves making sure that the policy of the United States is being driven by the national interest, not by any financial entanglement, financial leverage or other form of compromise.”
Hello and welcome to The Independent's live coverage of the developments coming this week regarding investigations into Mr Trump, his 2016 campaign, the Russian government, and any other actors or individuals who might get swept up in it along the way.
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