Donald Trump White House braces for hardball investigations; Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, company CFO firmly on Democrats' radar

The bills of the last two years are coming due for US president Donald Trump who has returned empty handed from his hyped summit spectacle with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. A terrible few weeks await Trump. It’s just been confirmed by networks that Allen Weisselberg, CFO of the Trump Organization, will soon be called to testify before the US House Intelligence Committee, now Democrat controlled. Weisselberg has been Trump’s primary accountant since Trump entered his father’s business in 1973. That’s just one piece of the humiliation. There’s also the Michael Cohen testimony dump which is still not over because Cohen is going to be back next week at Congress with more to unload. Meanwhile, the New York Times landed a four-byline bombshell that says Trump ordered top officials to give his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance. Word is that House Democrats have enough fodder to turn this information into must-watch television hearings. [caption id=“attachment_6109091” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File photo of US president Donald Trump. AP[/caption] In a sharply worded letter, newly powerful Democrats have served warning to the White House that this is the final time they are going to request voluntary participation. A congressional committee is giving the White House until Monday to voluntarily turn over documents related to White House security clearances. Chairman Elijah Cummings wrote to the White House today: “I am now writing a final time to request your voluntary cooperation with this investigation.” If the White House doesn’t respond, Cummings could issue subpoenas for documents and interviews. In January, the Oversight Committee launched a wide-ranging investigation into the White House’s security clearance process. In his Friday letter, Cummings said the White House has engaged in “repeated, significant, and ongoing abuses of the security clearance system.” The chairman said Cipollone “continue(s) to refuse to produce any of the documents and witnesses we requested.”

Meanwhile, Cohen’s warning to Republicans hangs thick in the wintry air: “People that follow Mr. Trump, as I did blindly, are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering,” Cohen said. “When Mr. Trump turned around early in the campaign and said, ‘I can shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and get away with it’—I want to be very clear—he’s not joking. He’s telling you the truth,” Cohen warned. “You don’t know him. I do.” TV ratings measurement company Nielsen’s results rubbed salt into Trump’s wounds saying 15.8 million people watched President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testify against him on television before a congressional committee. Cohen called Trump a “conman, cheat and racist” in opening remarks before proceeding to rip the US president’s reputation to shreds, detailing complex negotiations of hush money payments to women and much more of the dark side of Trumpworld.