Rep. Adam Schiff seems to run hot and cold on Felix Sater, a former business associate of President Trump who Democrats at one point thought was the key to proving collusion between Russia and Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Lately Mr. Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, has been running hot again.
After months of publicly ignoring Mr. Sater, Mr. Schiff in a fit of activity announced a hearing, and then when Mr. Sater was a no-show, the chairman issued a subpoena commanding him to appear.
The abrupt renewed focus on Mr. Sater surprised Republicans, who wonder about the sudden urgency in getting testimony from a man who has testified to the committee before and participated in special counsel Robert Mueller’s lengthy probe.
“It doesn’t make any sense to us,” Rep. John Ratcliffe, Texas Republican, told The Washington Times. “We weren’t sure why he was coming the last time. We are not sure why it was rescheduled last time. We are not sure why it was rescheduled this time.”
Or, as Republican Rep. Rick Crawford put it, “It’s unusual to take an interest at this point.”
Mr. Sater was a key figure in working on the scuttled plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. The Russian-born real estate developer served as middleman between the Trump Organization and Russian businessmen on the project.
Along with Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, Mr. Sater was supposed to be one of the people who could shed light on the leverage Democrats suspected Russia held over Mr. Trump.
Moments after Cohen’s testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee in February, Mr. Schiff announced Mr. Sater would testify publicly to his own panel in March.
It was supposed to be Mr. Schiff’s first open hearing since ascending to the chairmanship. He pledged the committee “was going to try to do as much as we can in the open” with Mr. Sater.
The hearing was pushed back because of “scheduling conflicts.” Then Mr. Mueller submitted his report to the Justice Department, and the entire Trump-Russia narrative was rewritten — several times over — and Mr. Sater seemed to slip in importance.
During a three-hour hearing last month where Russia’s overtures to the Trump campaign were debated, the aborted Trump Tower deal was mentioned frequently. Mr. Sater’s name was conspicuously absent, however.
Democrats insist they never lost interest.
“What we are wrestling with is an issue of bandwidth,” Mr. Schiff said after one of his public hearings on media manipulation and the 2020 election.
Mr. Schiff calls the Moscow Trump Tower project a “counterintelligence nightmare that may or may not be criminal.”
Rep. Jim Himes, Connecticut Democrat, said he still has more questions for Mr. Sater.
“I think it would be helpful for us to have a better understanding of his interactions during the campaign, in particular with the Russians. He was sort of the link on Trump Tower [Moscow] and I’m not sure we have all the information on that,” he told The Washington Times.
But Republicans scoffed at Mr. Schiff’s explanation.
“Backing off of [Mr. Sater] is something Adam Schiff should be pressed on because he made a point of that in the proceedings we had with Cohen,” Mr. Crawford said. “For whatever reason, I think [Democrats] thought better of it. I think the narrative changes day to day, so what you hear from Adam Schiff today may not be what you hear from Adam Schiff tomorrow.”
Mr. Crawford also wondered why the Democrats’ original plan to hold an open hearing has become a private hearing, shielded from the public.
“I think it’s a little inconsistent,” he said.
Mr. Sater skipped his appearance June 21, leaving Mr. Schiff fuming.
In an email to The Washington Times on the evening before his scheduled testimony, Mr. Sater said he intended to testify and planned to make a statement after his testimony.
He didn’t mention any health issues — but that’s what his attorney, Robert S. Wolf, told the public in explaining his no-show.
Mr. Sater said in an interview with Politico he took a powerful sedative because of his illness and slept through his alarm. He did not respond to follow-up questions from The Washington Times.
Republicans on the committee questioned the need to subpoena someone who has said he is willing to talk and who has already talked with the special counsel.
“Mueller has done his thing. I’m not sure what they are after by talking with him,” said Rep. Brad Wenstrup, Ohio Republican.
When asked what the Democrats expected to hear from Mr. Sater at this point, Mr. Wenstrup shrugged and said, “You got me.”
Several Democrats on the committee declined to comment about the necessity of a subpoena.
A Russian-born Brooklyn real estate developer and convicted felon, Mr. Sater is mentioned 104 times in the Mueller report. He is portrayed as a man eager to boost Mr. Trump’s presidential prospects through the Trump Tower deal.
“Buddy, our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,” Mr. Sater wrote in a November 2015 email to Cohen discussing the project.
It was also Mr. Sater’s idea to offer Russian President Vladimir Putin a free penthouse in the Moscow building, saying other wealthy Russians would pay a hefty price to live in the same building as their country’s leader.
Analysts say it’s surprising Democrats eager to hang Mr. Trump’s Russian connections around his neck haven’t pushed harder for Mr. Sater, given his ties to both.
“While the Mueller report talks about Felix Sater quite a bit, and the issues laid out on him in the report are not a good look for the president, ultimately the special counsel didn’t find a indictable crime, while at the same time, key members of the committee, including Chairman Schiff, went from saying Sater was critical to the whole inquiry, to not forcing him to testify,” said Jamil N. Jaffer, former senior counsel for the intelligence committee and executive director of the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
“That appears to be a significant change and the question is why,” Mr. Jaffer continued. “This is important because, at the end of the day, if Himes or Schiff really wanted Sater to testify, they’d be requiring his testimony. That suggests they don’t think he’s as important (or at least as important) as they used to believe.”
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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