House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes wants answers from the Justice Department after the agency’s inspector general report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation revealed yet another instance of “obstruction,” as it contained text messages that he has been asking for since late last year.
During an appearance Thursday evening on Laura Ingraham’s program on Fox News, the California Republican said House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, who is also a member of the intelligence panel, called him around noon when the report was shown to lawmakers to say that it contained the texts that were “pertinent” to the intelligence committee’s investigations into alleged FISA abuses and Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“These are emails or text messages that somebody held from us. So, every day that goes by, there’s a new example of obstruction of a congressional investigation,” Nunes said.
Nunes is currently pressing the DOJ to provide his committee with documents related to the investigation, which may include information on an alleged confidential FBI informant sniffing out suspicious ties to the Russians who spoke with members of President Trump’s 2016 campaign. Nunes set a deadline of Tuesday for the DOJ, but in a letter sent Wednesday to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he said the agency chose to “continue to defy the Committee’s valid subpoena.”
Nunes and members of the “Gang of Eight,” comprised of congressional leadership from both parties and the top members of the intelligence panels, were granted another opportunity to be briefed by DOJ and intelligence officials Thursday afternoon on the documents, but the exclusive nature of this meeting and briefings given in May has left Nunes unsatisfied.
The Wednesday letter obtained by the Washington Examiner was signed by all 13 GOP members of the intelligence panel and said that anything short of the DOJ permitting all members of the committee and “designated staff,” which goes well beyond just the Gang of Eight, falls short of the request and therefore is “an obstruction of the Committee’s efforts to investigate fully this significant matter.”
During his Fox News interview Thursday, Nunes made no mention of the briefing — only the Democratic side in attendance has spoken out, saying there is still “no evidence” to support Trump’s allegation that the FBI or any intelligence agency placed a “spy” in his campaign for political purposes — and instead focused only on the IG report to express his dismay with the DOJ.
Ingraham asked the congressman about new revelations concerning how Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, both FBI officials who worked on special counsel Robert Mueller’s federal Russia investigation, exchanged text messages about how they would “stop” then-candidate Trump from becoming president in 2016.
Nunes emphasized that Strzok was the lead investigator of the Clinton email case before asking again why Strzok’s text messages with his mistress at the FBI LIsa Page were not given to Congress, but were dealt to the IG.
“Why did I find out about that today at noon?” He asked. “This is a classic case of obstruction — but then question is who’s going to investigate these guys? We’re going to be very transparent with the American people, we’re ultimately going to get all the documents we want. Ultimately this is all going to spill out and the people are going to ask, well, what are you going to do? Who is going to get busted? Who’s going to go to jail?”
Nunes also noted he was unsettled by the redactions of the texts Strzok-Page texts.
While the DOJ continues to frustrate Nunes, there may hope for his cause in House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Ryan said Thursday he is considering “all of our options” to force the DOJ to turn over documents relating to surveillance of the Trump campaign. The Wisconsin Republican called on the department to voluntarily provide the material to “spare our country a whole lot of drama,” in a protracted battle with Congress.
