Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., says a cadre of House Intelligence Committee Republicans are now involved in sifting through more than a dozen transcripts as they consider making criminal referrals for an investigation into alleged political bias in the FBI.
Furthering the work begun by a joint GOP task force comprised of the Judiciary Committee and the Oversight Committee, which last year was headed by now-retired Chairmen Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.; and Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., Nunes said the effort is getting a second wind.
“We will be continuing that task force, except that the House Intelligence Committee Republicans will be involved,” Nunes, who is the ranking member of the panel, said in an interview with the Hill.TV that aired Monday.
“We’re now combing through the transcripts that came last year from the roughly 15 interviews or so,” Nunes said. “We’ll comb through those and we will be sending those recommendations on to the Department of Justice when the timing is appropriate.” He didn’t specify which interviews were being examined.
Although Democrats now control the lower chamber, Nunes has dismissed the idea that the investigation has been hamstrung.
“A lot of people think just because Republicans are out of power that we are not conducting an investigation. We still are,” Nunes said during an interview on Fox News last week. “Whether or not people will come in and interview with us, we don’t have gavels, we don’t have subpoena power. But we will still be trying to interview people and we will still be making criminal referrals.”
One person who has already been criminally referred to the Justice Department was Christopher Steele, the author of the controversial Trump dossier. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the last session of Congress, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who is the now chairman, referred Steele in January 2018 on the suspicion that he made false statements to federal authorities about the distribution of the dossier, which contained unverified claims about President Trump’s ties to Russia.
According to a memo on alleged FISA abuse released by Nunes and his then-GOP majority in the intelligence panel last year, the dossier was used by the FBI to help obtain the authority to spy on onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page, but key information, including its author’s anti-Trump bias and Democratic benefactors, was left out.
Nunes said last week Congress has not heard any updates from the DOJ on the Steele referral. He also said he thinks it will take a new attorney general to come in and “clean” up before any real progress can be made and for the American people to start regaining “confidence in what’s happening.”
Trump’s attorney general nominee William Barr is expected to be confirmed this week.
