“The documents Brady acquired reveal that the NRA was actively involved in the NMSA’s efforts in drafting the (sanctuary) Declaration; recruiting sheriffs to lobby state and political politicians to oppose the GVP (gun-violence prevention) bills and to adopt so-called Second Amendment Sanctuary Resolutions; and encouraging sheriffs to not enforce state laws,” Brady said.

With the completion of Special Counsel Mueller’s work and the release of his report, it is critically important that the Committee, and the Congress, make public as much information as possible that bears on Mueller’s findings, explain the evidence he uncovered, and expose the obstructive actions taken by this President and those who surround him.

It is in this light that the Committee today releases the transcripts of two days of interviews of Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

Cohen’s February and March 2019 testimony corroborate information previously received by the Committee, including the Trump Tower Moscow deal under negotiation throughout the 2016 election season by then-candidate Donald Trump. Cohen also presented significant and troubling new detail regarding the false statement that he provided to our Committee in August 2017 and for which, in part, he is now in prison. Since Cohen’s testimony, the Committee has already begun to follow up on information that Cohen provided related to attorneys for others involved in a joint defense agreement – including Jared Kushner and Donald Jr. and Ivanka Trump – to determine whether they aided in Cohen’s obstruction of the Committee’s investigation.

Cohen also testified that throughout the 2016 election, candidate Trump was actively kept apprised of a potential licensing agreement on a building to be erected in the heart of Moscow — a deal for which Mr. Trump and his family would have personally earned millions and would have required active participation by the Kremlin to get final approval. Cohen testified that while Trump continued to falsely claim that he had no business deals with Russia, Cohen was actively pursuing the deal through summer 2016.

Trump and his associates sought to ensure that false narrative continued. Cohen testified Trump urged him to ‘stay on message, which is there’s no Russia, there’s no collusion, there’s no business deals.’ Cohen also said that the president’s personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, also directed him to ‘stay on message,’ in part by encouraging Mr. Cohen to falsely claim to Congress that the Trump Tower Moscow deal ended in January 2016, before the Iowa caucuses. According to Mr. Cohen, attorneys for Kushner, Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and the Trump Organization also reviewed the statement before it was provided to Congress and raised no concerns with its false content.

The obstructive acts did not stop there. After the raid of Cohen’s hotel and office, Trump’s legal team, according to Cohen, again interjected – this time coaxing Cohen not to cooperate with authorities through implicit promises of a future pardon. Cohen testified that he had several conversations with Sekulow through July 2018 about pardons, and with an intermediary for the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. When Cohen no longer chose to toe the party line on President Trump’s relationship with Russia, the president and his allies trained their fire on Cohen and his family through a campaign of public intimidation to silence his testimony before several congressional committees – quintessential witness intimidation.

The public should judge for themselves both the evidence released today in conjunction with Cohen’s testimony related to Trump, his troubling relationship with Russia, and the efforts by Trump and those close to him to hide the relationship and potential business deals. The public also deserves the chance to judge Cohen’s credibility for themselves, including by examining some of the evidence he provided to the Committee.

The Committee will continue its investigation, continue to pursue additional evidence related to Cohen’s testimony, and present to the American people what we find.

But make no mistake, any attempt by the President, his associates or Administration to suborn perjury, obstruct our investigation or mislead the public will not be tolerated – and will be exposed.

“Federal prosecutors in New York are scrutinizing tens of thousands of documents relating to Donald Trump’s inauguration in a sign that the investigation into the committee’s finances is advancing,” CNN reports.

“The end of the document production indicates the investigation is moving into the next stage. Authorities are investigating whether any of the record $107 million in donations for the inaugural was misspent, used to improperly benefit certain individuals, or came from foreign donors in violation of campaign finance laws that prohibit foreign money in US elections.”

Democratic presidential candidate hopeful Pete Buttigieg did not mince words Sunday on a Fox News town hall, calling for a return to moral authority in America and chiding President Donald Trump’s tweets as a distraction. “The tweets are—I don’t care,” he said. “It’s the nature of grotesque things that you can’t look away.”The crowd erupted into raucous applause several times during the South Bend, Indiana mayor’s appearance, especially when he called for greater attention to reproductive rights and when he lambasted Trump for considering pardoning service members accused of war crimes. Trump tweeted that his favorite news network was “wasting time” by hosting Buttigieg. “They forgot the people who got them there,” Trump tweeted, then added: “Alfred E. Newman will never be President!”

"That's nice," Buttigieg, who is openly gay, said of Trump's comment while speaking with the NPR Politics Podcast and Iowa Public Radio. "I'm more interested in policies that affect LGBTQ people."

MARGARET BRENNAN: You do think there is more of a movement–

REP. SCHIFF: I- I–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –towards impeachment?

REP. SCHIFF: I think that we are seeing more members that recognize that the administration is acting in a lawless fashion, essentially having obstructed justice, is now obstructing Congress and our lawful function. And if we conclude that there’s no other way to do our jobs, no other way to do the oversight, no other way to show the American people what this president has done, his- his unethical and illegal acts as outlined in the Mueller Report, then we may get there.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re- what- what you’re suggesting just to clarify, is that by opening up an inquiry into impeachment- proceedings into impeachment, it would allow you to get the information even- and evidence you’ve been asking for?

REP. SCHIFF: It may–

MARGARET BRENNAN: But it provides a tool even if it fails?

REP. SCHIFF: It- it- it does, it provides an additional tool. And what we have been doing is we have been gradually escalating the- the tactics we need to use to get information for the American people. So we began by asking for voluntary cooperation and that was not forthcoming. We followed with subpoenas, we followed with contempt, we may follow with inherent contempt, and we may have to follow with impeachment. There may be an odd confluence of interest here between the Trump Administration and people around the president who want him impeached because they think it’s politically advantageous. And an increasing number of Democrats and maybe Republicans who feel this president’s conduct is so incompatible with office, incompatible with our system of checks and balances that if the only way that we can do our oversight is through an impeachment proceeding then maybe we have to go down that road. But I think it’ll be important to show the American people this was a decision made reluctantly.