The Justice Department has agreed to deliver 12 categories of underlying counterintelligence documents from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation to the House Intelligence Committee.
“DOJ has accepted our offer, and will begin turning over to the Committee twelve categories of counterintelligence and foreign intelligence materials beginning this week. Our subpoena will remain in effect, and be enforced should DOJ fail to comply with the full document request,” Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Wednesday morning.
Schiff also postponed a business meeting Wednesday in which members were set to take “enforcement action.”
The House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department on May 8 for Mueller’s full report and counterintelligence materials with a deadline of May 15.
Under threat of yet another contempt vote or other punishment against Attorney General William Barr, the Justice Department threatened on Tuesday to cut off negotiations with the panel. The agency had also offered to allow members of both the House and Senate intelligence panels to view a less-redacted version of Mueller’s report without grand jury information.
The Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee, which voted to cite Barr for contempt of Congress this month along party lines, has been less successful in their push to view all of Mueller’s findings. The vote came after the Trump administration asserted executive privilege over the materials from the unreleased Mueller investigation. The counterintelligence material sought by the House Intelligence Committee are not covered by executive privilege.
Mueller’s 448-page report was released last month with redactions. His team found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russians, but made no determination about whether President Trump tried to obstruct the investigation.
