President Trump has long accused House Democrats of engaging in a witch hunt against him, but after their massive document demand from more than 80 people who have worked for him, House Republicans say he is right.
“Democrats campaigned promising to be the party of solutions. Now they’re just the party of endless, unfocused investigations,” tweeted House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Tuesday.
“These Democrats hate President Trump so personally, and so viscerally, that they are willing to turn America into a Soviet-style state where the police apparatus is used extensively to go after one’s political enemies,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) wrote in an op-ed on FoxNews.com on Tuesday.
Some Democrats are warning that the document request could play right into Trump’s hands.
David Axelrod, who served as a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, tweeted Monday: “Maybe I’m missing something, but the hazard of an omnibus document demand by House judiciary versus discreet, serial ones is that, however legitimate the areas of inquiry, the wide-ranging nature of it is too easily plays into the ‘witch-hunt’ meme.”
Douglas E. Schoen, who served as an adviser to former President Bill Clinton and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, also warned Democrats against overreach.
“Ultimately, Congressional Democrats must be careful to proceed in a way that does not reinforce the ‘witch hunt’ narrative that the president has perpetuated, and to not buttress his claims that the investigations encircling him are partisan and biased,” he wrote in a piece on FoxNews.com on Tuesday.
Republican aides also questioned whether Democrats were using their control of the House to govern, or simply launch attacks against the president.
“This is a fishing expedition. The Democrats want a coordinated attack on the president, but you’re in the majority now — you have to govern. You’re just going to use your majority power to slowly bleed out all this information? You can’t just attack the president with your new found majority,” a House Judiciary Committee GOP spokesperson said on background.
“The Democrats don’t have anything on Trump now, so they want to dig and dig until eventually something turns up — like he cut some corner on a real estate deal, or didn’t pay some tax bill. Viewing these investigations as anything other than political hit jobs, especially after the Democrats pushed the Russia collusion hoax for more than two years, is close to insane,” said the House Intelligence Committee GOP spokesman Jack Langer.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement Monday evening that Democrats do not actually want to talk about their agenda.
“Democrats are harassing the President to distract from their radical agenda of making America a socialist country, killing babies after they’re born, and pushing a ‘green new deal’ that would destroy jobs and bankrupt America,” she said.
“The American people deserve a Congress that works with the President to address serious issues like immigration, healthcare, and infrastructure. The Democrats are more interested in pathetic political games and catering to a radical, leftist base than on producing results for our citizens. The Democrats are not after the truth, they are after the President,” she added.
The Oversight and Government Reform Committee spokesperson pointed to Democrats’ first blockbuster hearing of the year — with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
“In two months, he’s going to jail for lying to Congress,” the spokesperson said. “They brought a convicted felon before the committee.”
“It’s damaging to our credibility as a committee responsible for oversight.”