House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and the committee’s top Republican, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), sent Justice Department leaders a letter last month demanding the full report submitted by special counsel Robert Mueller and its underlying materials, as well as a briefing from Mueller’s team.
The letter — which cites laws mandating the executive branch keeps Congress’ intelligence committees “fully and currently informed” of intelligence actions — requests “all materials” from obtained and produced by probe, “regardless of classification or form.”
The letter was first reported by CNN and the Daily Beast. TPM has obtained a copy.
Since the early days of the investigations into Russia’s 2016 election meddling, Nunes and Schiff have butt heads over the direction of the probes, making the bipartisan nature of last month’s letter noteworthy.
The letter is dated March 27, which is two days after NBC News reported that the FBI was planning some sort of counterintelligence briefing for lawmakers in the weeks to come. It was also sent one day before Nunes joined other Republicans in calling for Schiff to resign from the committee, and Nunes has since sought to meet with Barr to discuss bringing charges against officials for how they handled the investigation.
The March 27 is addressed to Attorney General Bill Barr, FBI Director Chris Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the Mueller probe for the bulk of its existence.
The committee leaders note in the letter that the Mueller probe started as a counterintelligence investigation. They also stress that this request should be considered separate from the demands for the full report and underlying material issued by House Democrats leading other committees in Congress.
Read the full letter below:
