President Trump’s 2016 campaign has turned over about 20,000 pages of documents so far to a Senate panel investigating Russia’s role in last year’s election, a committee spokesperson said Tuesday.
The Senate Judiciary Committee received the documents on Aug. 2, spokesman George Hartmann told Bloomberg, the same day Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, turned over an additional 400 pages or so sought by lawmakers investigating last year’s race.
FBI agents raided Mr. Manafort’s residence in Alexandria, Virginia, last month in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the election, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager said Wednesday, The Washington Post first reported.
The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., sent the committee another 250 pages two days later, Mr. Hartmann told Bloomberg.
The documents received by Senate investigators were turned over in response to a request made late last month by lawmakers probing Russia’s involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, including any possible connections between Moscow and Mr. Trump’s inner-circle.
Similar requests made last month to Fusion GPS, a research firm credited with creating an infamous dossier detailing Mr. Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, as well as its CEO, Glenn Simpson, have yielded zero documents so far, Mr. Hartmann added.
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In letters sent last month to the president’s son and Mr. Manafort, the committee requested all documents concerning their controversial June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Kremlin-connected lawyer, as well as any records of them attempting to obtain information from Russia about Mr. Trump’s former White House rival, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, last week said he also wants to know if Russians bankrolled the salacious dossier assembled by Fusion GPS last year and leaked shortly before Mr. Trump took office, Bloomberg reported. The document contains unverified claims concerning Mr. Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, including information that Moscow could potentially use to blackmail the president.
The Russian government interfered in last year’s race to help elect Mr. Trump, according to the U.S. intelligence community. Officials in the House, Senate and Department of Justice are currently investigating the extent of Moscow’s involvement in addition to any possible collusion on the Trump campaign’s part.
Moscow has denied meddling in last year’s race, and Mr. Trump has repeatedly rejected the claims of collusion as “fake news.”
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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