House Democrats subpoena two Trump allies to testify about the president obstructing justice

The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday subpoenaed former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and former White House aide Rick Dearborn to have them testify about President Donald Trump's alleged efforts to interfere with former special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Politico reports that the Judiciary Committee wants to hear Lewandowski talk about the president's efforts to get him to convince former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to un-recuse himself and limit the scope of Mueller's probe.

According to Mueller's report, Trump instructed Lewandowski to order Sessions to limit the scope of Mueller's probe to investigating future Russian efforts to interfere in American elections. Lewandowski was reluctant to carry out this instruction and asked Dearborn to do it for him.

Dearborn, however, also declined to give this message to Sessions.

"Corey Lewandowski and Rick Dearborn were prominently featured in the special counsel’s description of President Trump’s efforts to obstruct justice by directing then-White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire the special counsel, and then by ordering him to lie about it," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said in a statement announcing the subpoenas.

Unlike Dearborn and former White House counsel Don McGahn, Lewandowski was never a White House employee, which will mean that the White House will not be able to claim executive privilege over his conversations with the president.