The House Intelligence Committee is threatening to subpoena the Department of Justice for refusing to answer questions about President Trump’s claim that his predecessor was using surveillance tactics on him during the campaign.
The Department of Justice has asked the Intelligence Committee for more time to produce information relating to Trump’s claim about Obama, which the president made in a Saturday morning tweet earlier this month.
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The Intelligence Committee, which deals mostly with classified information, will hold a rare public hearing on March 20 and Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., wants the information by then.
“The Department of Justice has asked for more time to comply with the House Intelligence Committee’s request for information related to possible surveillance of Donald Trump or his associates during the election campaign,” an intelligence panel spokesman said. “We have asked the department to provide us this information before the committee’s open hearing scheduled for March 20. If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered.”
Trump tweeted on March 4: “Just found out that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
Trump aides said he was referring to general surveillance.
The March 20 hearing will focus on the allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. It was recently expanded to include claims by Trump, backed up by some news reports, that intelligence operations under the Obama administration were surveilling Trump’s campaign.
