Fox News reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threatened he would “subpoena” documents from lawmakers and aides of the House Intelligence Committee earlier this year — a move one staffer described as “downright chilling.”
According to emails detailing the January 2018 encounter, Rosenstein warned that lawmakers and staffers would be subpoenaed for emails, phone records, and other information pertaining to their inquiries on the Justice Department’s ongoing Russia investigation.
“The DAG [Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein] criticized the Committee for sending our requests in writing and was further critical of the Committee’s request to have DOJ/FBI do the same when responding,” Kash Patel, then-senior counsel for counterterrorism, wrote to the House Office of General Counsel. “Going so far as to say that if the Committee likes being litigators, then ‘we [DOJ] too [are] litigators, and we will subpoena your records and emails,’ referring to HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] and Congress overall.”
Another House committee aide supported Patel’s claims.
“Let me just add that watching the Deputy Attorney General launch a sustained personal attack against a congressional staffer in retaliation for vigorous oversight was astonishing and disheartening … Also, having the nation’s #1 (for these matters) law enforcement officer threaten to ‘subpoena your calls and emails’ was downright chilling.”
However, the FBI pushed back on the characterization included in the emails.
“The FBI disagrees with a number of characterizations of the meeting as described in the excerpts of a staffer’s emails provided to us by Fox News,” the FBI said in a statement.
Additionally, Rosenstein “never threatened anyone in the room with a criminal investigation,” according to a DOJ official.
“The Deputy Attorney General was making the point — after being threatened with contempt — that as an American citizen charged with the offense of the contempt of Congress, he would have the right to defend himself, including requesting production of relevant emails and text messages and calling them as witnesses to demonstrate that their allegations are false,” the official said, per Fox News. “That is why he put them on notice to retain relevant emails and text messages, and he hopes they did so. (We have no process to obtain such records without congressional approval.)”
The meeting in January coincided with when the Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., had launched accusations of surveillance abuse against the agency and was part of the ongoing battle between the committee and the agency for various document requests from the committee.
A DOJ official claimed that “no formal complaint was ever filed” with the General Counsel or the Inspector General about the meeting, while also adding that Rosenstein and Nunes “went to dinner with a mutual friend the night of this meeting and the chairman didn’t raise any concerns about the conversation at that dinner.”
Rosenstein is overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, which is looking at Russian interference in the 2016 election and if the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin.
