The Department of Justice denied the Senate Judiciary Committee’s requests to interview two FBI officials about President Donald Trump’s termination of FBI Director James Comey, CNN reported on Wednesday, a possible sign that special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Comey’s firing.
According to the report, the panel’s chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asked the Department of Justice to allow Senate investigators to sit down with senior FBI officials Carl Ghattas and James Rybicki for a transcribed interview.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Samuel Ramer cited the Justice Department’s “long-standing policy regarding the confidentiality and sensitivity of information relating to pending matters” in a July letter denying that request, as quoted by CNN.
According to CNN, the Justice Department specifically cited “the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III” as special counsel overseeing the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and “related matters” as its cause for denying the Senate panel’s request.
Grassley and Feinstein in August told Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that Senate investigators would “limit the scope” of the interview to avoid overlap with Mueller’s probe, a fruitless modification, according to CNN.
“Thus far, we’ve not received cooperation from DOJ and the special counsel’s office in scheduling those interviews voluntarily,” Grassley’s spokesman George Hartmann told CNN. “Both the judiciary committee and the special counsel are engaged in important investigations.”
A spokeswoman for the Justice Department told CNN that the subject is a “question for the special counsel,” and a spokesperson for Mueller declined to comment to CNN.
I’m very leery of Feinstein’s behavior with respect to all of this. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like she’s more concerned with inflating her importance through congressional interference in the investigations than she is in protecting the integrity of what Mueller is doing. It’s making her all too willing to entertain Grassley’s abject nonsense. She should be telling him to go fuck himself and telling the MSM that he’s full of shit when it comes to whatever his latest attempt to taint everything is. The mantra should be “let Mueller do his job and the investigation run its course and stop trying to play apart in it.”
Apparently, the FBI is not responsible to the American people. Good to know. Under Sessions’ watch, they all now work for T rump and Russia. I’ll remember this when Mueller nails Jefferey Beauregard Sessions III’s ass to the bench with felony obstruction of justice charges.
Actually, this is a good thing. No legitimacy should be lent to Grassley’s attempts to inject himself into the mix. He wants to interview these people in an attempt to prove that Comey wrote the exoneration of Clinton before the investigation was over as part of his ongoing efforts to kill Comey’s credibility and help Faux News generate conspiracy nonsense about Comey, the Clinton investigation and, by extension, Mueller’s investigation. Feinstein will tell you she’s going along with Grassley to keep the peace and will act as a check on his nonsense, but she won’t…her going along with him at all just helps him. There is zero immediate need for them to ask their questions now other than Grassley’s “need” to try to undermine Mueller and Feinstein’s “need” to be in the limelight.
Don’t they have anything better to do right now? How about looking into the cretinous Trump nominees more closely? Also, it’s time for DiFi to retire. Needless to say, Grassley too but too much to wish for. By all means, more 80-year Senators.