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The panel, which along with the Senate is
controlled by Trump's fellow Republicans, wants to question
Trump Jr. about testimony he gave to the Senate Judiciary
Committee in September 2017 which was subsequently contradicted
in public testimony by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, one
of the sources said.
The committee is one of the few in the Senate that has been
conducting serious investigations related to Russian meddling in
the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump's son-in-law and
adviser Jared Kushner has appeared before the panel at least
twice.
During his Judiciary Committee appearance, the source said,
Trump Jr. was asked about the extent of his involvement in a
plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
"Like I said, I was peripherally aware of it, but most of my
knowledge has been gained since as it relates to hearing about
it over the last few weeks," Trump Jr. told the committee,
according to an official transcript.
In testimony before the House of Representatives Oversight
Committee, however, Cohen, said he briefed Trump family members
"approximately 10 times" about the Moscow Trump Tower project,
and that Trump Jr. and his sister Ivanka were among the family
members he briefed.
Cohen has also told Congress that some reimbursement checks
issued to him for hush money payments to an adult film star who
said she had an affair with President Trump were signed by Trump
Jr, as well as the Trump Organization's chief financial officer.
Cohen this week began serving a federal prison sentence for
tax evasion and campaign finance violations.
In his report on Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential
election in 2016, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team of
prosecutors reported that there was a “reasonable argument” that
Trump Jr. violated campaign finance laws.
But Mueller's team concluded they did not believe they could
obtain a conviction.
A lawyer for Trump Jr. did not immediately respond to a request
for comment on Wednesday.
A Senate Intelligence Committee spokeswoman declined to discuss
details of its own long-running investigation into Russia's
election interference.
Along with senior campaign adviser Paul Manafort and Trump's
son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump Jr. participated in a June 2016
meeting at Trump Tower with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian
lawyer who they believed had damaging information on Hillary
Clinton, Trump’s Democratic opponent in the election.
At one point, Trump Jr. sent Rob Goldstone, a publicist involved
in setting up the meeting, an email declaring: "If it's what you
say, I love it ..."
But he later tweeted that all Veselnitskaya wanted to talk about
was adoption policy and an anti-Russian U.S. sanctions law.
In his report, Mueller detailed extensive contacts between
Trump's election campaign and Russian operatives, but did not
find evidence of a conspiracy.
Trump Jr. has used his Twitter feed to condemn the
investigations and media coverage of his father, tweeting on
Wednesday: "Democrats are not interested in the truth, they just
want to keep the Hoax going forever. The games need to stop."
"Investigate the investigators!" he tweeted on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by David Alexander, Chris
Reese and James Dalgleish)
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