In congressional Republicans’ latest attempt to undermine the Russia investigation, House Judiciary Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) on Thursday evening issued a subpoena to the Justice Department demanding documents on the surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server and the decision to fire Andrew McCabe from the FBI.
As Mueller’s investigation into potential ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia intensifies, Republicans in Congress have been increasingly critical of the Justice Department and FBI’s investigative process and accused investigators of operating with bias against Trump. On Thursday, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee voted to release their partisan report on Russian meddling, which questions part of the intelligence community’s assessment on Russian election interference.
The subpoena issued by Goodlatte on Thursday followed two previous requests to the Justice Department. Last year, Goodlatte and House Oversight Committee Chair Trey Gowdy (R-SC) requested documents on the Hillary Clinton email investigation. At the time, the two chairmen wanted to know why the FBI made announcements about the Clinton probe but not the investigation into the Trump campaign, and they wanted more information on the decision not to charge Clinton. Goodlatte said that he was also asking for documents on McCabe’s firing since his ouster was ostensibly linked to his actions during the Clinton investigation.
In February, Goodlatte wrote that he was concerned about “potential abuses” of the surveillance process and asked for documents on requests to surveil Trump associates.
In addition to conducting his own investigation of the DOJ’s actions in 2016, Goodlatte has called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a second special counsel to investigate the matter.
“There is evidence of bias, trending toward animus, among those charged with investigating serious cases. There is evidence political opposition research was used in court filings. There is evidence this political opposition research was neither vetted before it was used nor fully revealed to the relevant tribunal,” he wrote in a letter with Gowdy earlier in March.
Read Goodlatte’s Thursday letter and subpoena:
I’d like to ask “have you no shame”" but, unfortunately, I already know the answer…
Let me guess. The DOJ and FBI will rightfully stone-wall this demand at least until Mueller’s probe is complete and indictments are handed down. Irreparable harm to the investigation would result if the Repbliscum lead committee ever gets their grubby hands on grand jury testimony, witness statements and more. Oh, and if they can stop the release until the November elections and we Democrats win the House, watch this all go away as, under House rules, when we take over this committee all previous subpoenas can and will be cancelled. Game-set-match Goodlatte!
Still at it I see.
We see how well that went with ‘recused’ bullshit artist, Devin Nunes (or is it Evin Dunces? Only thing needed to be added is the ‘c’.) Now its Badlatte’s turn.
I do hope Chris Wray figures out that handing over anything to House GOP Reps at this point is nothing more than attempts at witness tampering, especially after their last effort to go after Christopher Steele and the dossier, which resulted in a couple of weeks of flaming nonsense and a laughable memo being issued in essence to go after the Mueller’s probe in an effort to discredit it.
Amen.
Privately I do what I can, but I think the national Democrats have to start explaining to the nation that the Republican party has changed over the decades, become rabidly radical and tribal, and is now a completely corrupt crime machine that’s profoundly betrayed the nation. The only way this kind of propagandistic crap can be anything but laughable is because so many people don’t realize that. They only see “questions being raised” and so forth. The media need to do their part too, obviously, but certainly it’s incumbent on the Democrats.