Incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), plans to investigate the president’s intense hatred of CNN and The Washington Post and whether it resulted in an abuse of power.
Specifically, Schiff told “Axios on HBO” in an episode that aired Sunday, that they want to determine whether Trump used “the instruments of state power to punish the press.”
“It is very squarely within our responsibility to find out,” he said.
House Dems plan to investigate whether Trump abused WH power by targeting—and trying to punish with "instruments of state power"—The Washington Post and CNN, incoming House intelligence chairman Adam Schiff said in an interview for "Axios on HBO." https://t.co/jFp97kdKBp
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) November 11, 2018
Schiff brought up two avenues of inquiry with press-freedom themes, aimed at investigating possible administration actions targeting two of the nation's highest profile corporations.
1) Schiff said Trump "was secretly meeting with the postmaster [general] in an effort to browbeat the postmaster [general] into raising postal rates on Amazon."
- "This appears to be an effort by the president to use the instruments of state power to punish Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post," Schiff said. Jeff Bezos is founder, chairman and CEO of Amazon, and he owns the Washington Post.
2) Schiff said Congress also needs to examine whether Trump attempted to block AT&T’s merger with Time Warner as payback to CNN.
- "We don't know, for example, whether the effort to hold up the merger of the parent of CNN was a concern over antitrust or whether this was an effort merely to punish CNN," Schiff said.
According to Axios, Democrats will likely pursue at least 85 topics through investigations and subpoenas against President Trump and his administration once they assume power.