House GOP Wants DOJ Watchdog To Probe Leaks About Flynn And Russia

RESTRICTION: NO New York or New Jersey Newspapers or newspapers within a 75 mile radius of New York CityUnited States Representative Jason Chaffetz (Democrat of Utah), Chairman, US House Committee on Oversight and Go... RESTRICTION: NO New York or New Jersey Newspapers or newspapers within a 75 mile radius of New York CityUnited States Representative Jason Chaffetz (Democrat of Utah), Chairman, US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, listens as FBI Director James Comey gives testimony before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform following his announcement on Tuesday that he would recommend not to prosecute former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for maintaining a private server on Capitol Hill FBI Director Comey Testifies on Clinton E-Mail Server Investigation, Washington, D.C, USA - 07 Jul 2016 (Rex Features via AP Images) MORE LESS
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Two top House Republicans on Wednesday sent a letter to the Justice Department inspector general, urging the agency watchdog to investigate leaks about communications between aides to President Donald Trump and Russian officials.

“We have serious concerns about the potential inadequate protection of classified information here,” wrote Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), chair of the Oversight Committee, and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), chair of the Judiciary Committee. “In light of this, we request that your office begin an immediate investigation into whether classified information was mishandled here.”

In the letter, the two chairmen cited news reports about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s communications with the Russian ambassador. Those reports said that Flynn’s conversations were discovered when U.S. officials intercepted communications. Reports that additional Trump aides spoke with Russian officials ahead of the election also said that U.S. officials discovered the conversations by intercepting the communications.

“Generally, collection activities by intelligence agencies are classified,” Chaffetz and Goodlatte wrote in their letter, adding later that the “release of classified national security information can, by definition, have grave effects on national security.”

In the wake of Flynn’s resignation, Trump and several House Republicans have focused on the leaks that led to the revelations about his communications with the Russian ambassador. However, some Republicans have said that while investigating the leaks is important, the focus of Congressional probes should be about the Trump administration’s relationship with Russia.

Read the letter:

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  1. Avatar for jadez jadez says:

    yea…leaks like the memo the AG sent telling the puppet he had a cabinet member open to blackmail.

    that is ONLY a bad thing cause of those damn leaks!
    flynn could still be feeding the Kremlin intelligence without it!

  2. “Generally, collection activities by intelligence agencies are classified,” Chaffetz and Goodlatte wrote in their letter, adding later that the "release of classified national security information can, by definition, have grave effects on national security."

    Yeah, so can colluding with hostile foreign entities.

  3. Oh of course. Jeff “cattle prods are optional” Sessions has a hand placed hatchet man at Justice by now, part one of the Stalin style purges coming up at your behest.

    Probe this Jasoninthehouse:

    Yesterday our president was openly threatened. Russians Lament anti-Trump Purge in the pages of The Financial Times by two officials of the Russian Federation.

    Nikolai Kovalev, former head of the FSB: “This is disinformation. There’s an information war against Trump in which, as we can see, all means are [considered] necessary. These political games will continue as long as anti-Russian sentiment has a serious presence in the American establishment.”
    Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the Lower House: “He needs to enact his campaign platform. He said everything in his campaign platform: restore relations with Russia and China, and fight terrorism. When they enact the campaign platform, everything will be fine.”

    And we got spy ships, and we got cruise missiles being deployed for who knows what purpose, and we got God knows what else. And you want to throw leakers in jail.

    Totally unacceptable.

  4. Just so everyone’s clear here: Being a Russian mole is not nearly as bad as being the one that exposes the Russian mole.

    Here’s an interesting interview Malcolm Nance did with ABC Australia. Well worth watching. (Runs about six minutes.)

    @circusmax Spy ships off our coasts are nothing unusual. Just as our spy ships off the coasts of Russia, China, North Korea, etc. are not unusual.
    It’s also worth noting that Nikolai Kovalev was/is a business “associate” of Rex Tillerson.

  5. Ya check Chaffetz , you seedy little troll.
    Where was the concern about the hacking into the DNC?
    The problem isn’t the fucking leaks
    The problem is we have people in our government colluding with the Russians and foreign powers.
    That would be something to investigate
    Just jaw dropping temerity

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