A top conservative congressman complained Thursday about the Justice Department redacting “material facts” in documents provided to congressional investigators looking into possible wrongdoing at the agency.
Upset that Attorney General Jeff Sessions refused to appoint a second special counsel, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., accused the DOJ of not complying with a subpoena for documents related to alleged spy authority abuses.
“I can tell you tonight, I went through and viewed some redacted things that were given to our committee, and on seven pages, there were 12 material facts — material facts, not just names — material facts that were omitted by the Department of Justice. It is time that they come clean and give Congress what they need,” Meadows said during an interview on Fox News.
.@RepMarkMeadows on alleged FBI wrongdoing: “We’re putting the pieces of a puzzle together, but the DOJ are keeping some of the pieces from us.” @IngrahamAngle https://t.co/VCJIsovITK pic.twitter.com/r7kBwSWqla
— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 30, 2018
House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., subpoenaed the Justice Department last week for documents related to alleged FISA abuses, the agency’s investigations into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server in 2016, and the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. That was months after he and House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., had requested the documents.
Meadows is not a member of the Judiciary Committee, but does sit on the oversight panel and is chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.
His comments come one day after Fox News broke a story about newly discovered text messages exchanged between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page “strongly” suggesting a coordinated effort enjoining high-ranking officials in the U.S. government under the Obama administration and former Senate Democratic leadership in the early days of the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Meadows pointed to that report name-dropping former President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, among others, and said the materials he viewed “didn’t stop there.”
“When we look at the multiple reactions that have taken place, this Department of Justice is not complying with the subpoena and with the oversight responsibility we have in Congress,” he said. “And so for the attorney general to suggest that there is not enough there is extremely disappointing.”
Meadows was joined by Goodlatte and Gowdy, in being disappointed when Sessions revealed Thursday Utah’s top federal prosecutor was looking into wrongdoing in the Justice Department and FBI rather than appointing a second special counsel — the first being Robert Mueller, who is spearheading the federal Russia inquiry.
While Meadows only hinted that some members of government might be getting themselves into trouble with Congress, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., went further in a Fox News interview Wednesday, saying if Goodlatte’s subpoena is not honored, “We should move quickly to contempt [of Congress] and then we should move to impeachment.”
