President Trump threatened Wednesday to “use the powers granted to the Presidency” to “get involved” in facilitating the delivery of documents to Congress.
Trump did not describe the documents, or what legislative body is seeking them.
However, his tweeted frustration comes less than a month after he denounced the Justice Department’s alleged “slow walking” of documents to the House Judiciary Committee regarding the FBI’s probes of possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia and Hillary Clinton using a private email server as secretary of state.
It also comes two days after the Justice Department refused Monday to grant Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Mark Meadows, R-N.C., access to a memo written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein describing the scope of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia-focused investigation.
“A Rigged System – They don’t want to turn over Documents to Congress,” Trump tweeted.
“What are they afraid of? Why so much redacting? Why such unequal ‘justice?’ At some point I will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the Presidency and get involved!” he wrote.
As president, Trump has the power to unilaterally declassify information, but ordering the release of documents on an active investigation would present additional legal and political considerations.
“The Department sent a letter to Reps. Jordan and Meadows on Monday formally declining to provide the ‘scope memo’ because it pertains to an ongoing criminal investigation,” Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores told the Washington Examiner.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., issued a subpoena to the Justice Department in March, seeking various documents, including on the Clinton email server probe and alleged abuse of surveillance powers during the 2016 election.
Trump expressed outrage last month about the pace of document-delivery.
Trump tweeted on April 7: “Lawmakers of the House Judiciary Committee are angrily accusing the Department of Justice of missing the Thursday Deadline for turning over UNREDACTED Documents relating to FISA abuse, FBI, Comey, Lynch, McCabe, Clinton Emails and much more. Slow walking – what is going on? BAD!”
He added, eight minutes later: “What does the Department of Justice and FBI have to hide? Why aren’t they giving the strongly requested documents (unredacted) to the HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE? Stalling, but for what reason? Not looking good!”
Flores said the department has, however, allowed “dozens of members and staff from both parties” to view “thousands of classified pages and now House staff — both majority and minority — currently have temporary office space at DOJ to review hundreds of thousands of documents previously reviewed by the Inspector General.”
Spokespeople for Goodlatte and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
