House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has ramped up his attacks on the Justice Department and the FBI, saying the agencies are delaying their response to his panel’s information requests because they are hoping Democrats will win control of the House after the 2018 midterm elections.
“100 percent, [the FBI and DOJ] are putting all their chips on the Republicans losing the House and all these investigations will shut down,” Nunes said during an interview for the podcast of his colleague, Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., in audio obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
A group of high-profile House GOP lawmakers have clashed with Justice Department and FBI officials in recent months as they pursue documents covering the federal Russia investigation — including the FBI’s use of an informant to make contact with the Trump campaign and speculation that federal officials had abused Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act powers to gather information on Trump aides — and the probe of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
Tensions culminated with Nunes demanding that the DOJ and the FBI provide the materials or be subject to “obstruction,” followed by the House passing a resolution demanding the agencies hand over sensitive documents sought by Nunes, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.
“This is really serious stuff,” Nunes said. “They opened up a counter intelligence investigation into the Trump campaign.”
“After seven or eight months of stonewalling, we realized [the FBI and DOJ] had no intelligence in the opening of that investigation,” he continued.
Nunes also used the interview as a platform to attack the press.
“If the shoe was on the other foot, and this is what’s so bad and so corrupt about the media, and why I’m so worried about the future of our country, because without a free and fair and open media we have a major problem in this country,” Nunes said.
“The media is what we count on to bring the transparency to government. There’s no possible way that if [former President] George W. Bush had done this to [former President Barack] Obama this town would have been on fire,” he added.
Democrats have accused the president and his allies in Congress of attempting to interfere with the federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.
