The Republican-led Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee gave Chairman Ron Johnson the authority to issues dozens of subpoenas to officials tied to the Trump-Russia investigation.
In an 8-6 party-line vote on Thursday, the oversight committee approved a motion to “authorize the Chairman to issue subpoenas for records and testimony to U.S. Government agencies and to individuals relating to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation, the DOJ Inspector General’s review of that investigation, and the ‘unmasking’ of U.S. persons affiliated with the Trump campaign, transition teams, and Trump Administration.” Subpoenas could also be issued against individuals involved in leaks of classified information to the media, interactions between State Department political officials and Steele, the FBI’s successful efforts to gain access to the Trump transition team’s records, and other issues.
“America has long been admired for its peaceful transitions of power,” Johnson said on Thursday. “However, evidence is mounting that this is not what happened in the transition between the Obama and Trump administrations. The undisputed examples that support that statement include the fact that the DNC and the Clinton campaign paid for fabricated foreign research, the Steele Dossier, that was used to instigate an FBI investigation against the Trump campaign and obtain FISA warrants.”
[Read more: Ron Johnson aims to punish attempted ‘coup’ against Trump]
Among the issues the Wisconsin Republican wants to explore are the use of confidential human sources to target the Trump campaign, the 17 “significant errors or omissions” found by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and the FBI’s “misuse of transition briefings for investigative purposes.” Also on his radar are Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two former FBI officials whose anti-Trump text messages added fuel to Republican fears of bias against the president; and the case against retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
Horowitz’s December report criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against Trump campaign associate Carter Page in 2016 and 2017 and for the bureau’s reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s deeply flawed dossier. Steele put his research together at the behest of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm. Recently declassified footnotes show the FBI was aware that Steele’s dossier may have been compromised by Russian disinformation and used it anyway.
Democrats, including ranking member Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, oppose the escalation of the Republican-led investigation.
“While I have some concerns about the ongoing Justice Department investigation, this committee deserves the opportunity to review and evaluate those findings before authorizing such a significant number of subpoenas in a single vote,” Peters said. “To duplicate the Justice Department’s efforts now suggests that this pursuit is more about generating headlines than any real need for an investigation. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I move to take consideration for this subpoena motion until the Durham investigation is complete.”
U.S. Attorney John Durham is carrying out an independent review on the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation and the conduct of law enforcement and intelligence officials involved in it.
Johnson defended the timing of the vote, saying the “log jam” of information had only been broken recently, with the declassification of footnotes in Horowitz’s report that the FBI was aware that Steele’s dossier may have compromised by Russian disinformation, revelations about the “unmaskings” by Obama administration officials, new evidence unearthed in the case against Flynn showing the FBI had not found any derogatory information against him as of early January 2017, and the release of House Intelligence Committee witness transcripts showing top Obama officials didn’t have any direct evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.
The Senate, the chairman argued, has primary oversight authority and should not delegate that power to the Justice Department.
Last month, acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell released a declassified National Security Agency document containing a list of dozens of Obama administration officials, including Joe Biden, who were authorized recipients of information in response to “unmasking” requests that revealed Flynn’s identity in surveillance intercepts. The former Trump national security adviser’s name was not masked in the FBI reports on his conversations with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham is also seeking broad authority to subpoena dozens of key officials in the Trump-Russia investigation, with the 53-person wish list including former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, fired FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and others. That vote was moved from Thursday to next week.
