A US House panel has subpoenaed Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and a former White House aide as the president’s impeachment push ramps up.
The House Judiciary Committee issued the subpoenas on Thursday to Corey Lewandowski and former White House aide Rick Dearborn.
They are to testify before the House committee in an investigation to determine whether to impeach President Trump.
Both aides were mentioned at the special counsel Robert Mueller’s report for obstructing justice. House judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler will declare the possibility of an impeachment by the end of the year.
Former aides of the White House, Lewandowski and Dearborn will publicly testify before the committee on September 17.
Last week, House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler announced that his panel was officially conducting an impeachment inquiry into Trump.
Nadler said on August 8 that the committee had launched "formal impeachment proceedings" into Trump’s alleged misconduct and the panel would decide by the end of the year whether to refer articles of impeachment to the House floor.
Calls for impeachment of Trump have grown among Democratic lawmakers in the wake of the special counsel’s final statement at the conclusion of the so-called Russia probe.
In his last statement, the special counsel neither cleared the president nor charged him, throwing the ball into the Congress’ court.
Mueller argued that the decision not to charge Trump was made based on the Justice Department’s longstanding policy of not bringing charges against a sitting president.
In his public testimony before two congressional House committees on July 24, the special counsel once again stuck to the contents of his 400-plus page report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, reiterating that he didn’t find sufficient evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. He also didn't conclusively determine whether the president committed obstruction of justice, even though he outlined nearly a dozen instances involving Trump.