The Justice Department again told Republican lawmakers on Wednesday that it has nearly complied with what an official characterized as a historically large demand for documents.
House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee leaders were already told earlier this month by a top official that the Justice Department had “substantially complied with” sizable documents requests from the two panels.
Officials with the Justice Department and FBI were on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to explain how they have complied with demands — even as some lawmakers threatened impeachment proceedings against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Ahead of the afternoon meeting, Justice Department officials told reporters on Wednesday how two subpoenas from the House Intelligence Committee have been fully complied with. The first subpoena came in eight parts, and pertained to warrant applications and court documents related to the surveillance of Carter Page, as well as the FBI’s relationship with Christopher Steele, the author of the Trump dossier.
[Also read: DOJ releases 412 pages of top-secret FISA documents on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page]
The second House Intelligence subpoena was about a specific individual, which was later dubbed “spy-gate” by the president. That request was fulfilled through multiple briefings, the officials explained.
Almost all demands from a House Judiciary Committee subpoena have been fulfilled with oversight from U.S. Attorney John Lausch of Illinois, the officials said.
The large swath of documents demands includes the ongoing investigation of Russia interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible links to the Trump campaign, in addition to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.
More than 880,000 pages of documents have been made available to the House Judiciary Committee through that subpoena, the Justice Department said.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., as well as House Freedom Caucus Chairmen Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, were part of Wednesday’s meeting.
Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ed O’Callaghan, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, FBI General Counsel Dana Boente, and Lausch joined from the Justice Department and FBI.
The Trump-aligned lawmakers have accused Rosenstein and the Justice Department of withholding documents, but the officials described the lengths the department has gone through to meet the demands — including building two reading rooms and writing new software code to search its database of top-secret materials.
The only document that the department has flat-out declined to turn over is an unredacted memo by Rosenstein authorizing special counsel Robert Mueller when he took over the Russia investigation, officials said.
In a rare move, the FBI over the weekend released the surveillance warrant application for Page, a former Trump campaign aide, though it was heavily redacted.
Justice Department officials said less-redacted documents related to the Page warrant have been available for review, and so far 30 or so House members have personally viewed them.
However, officials said Nunes has not done so himself, despite signing a letter demanding Trump declassify sections of the warrant.
