House GOP plans to subpoena DOJ for more than 1mn documents related to Clinton email probe
Unhappy with the “very slow” ways of the Justice Department, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee want to subpoena it for one million missing documents related to the probe into Hillary Clinton’s private emails.
The committee has received only a “tiny percentage” — about 3,000 of 1.2 million — of the documents they have requested, chairman of the committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on the ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ show.
“We need to have those documents,” Goodlatte said. “We've had communications with the Department of Justice about this and they know that not just myself and Chairman [Trey] Gowdy, but many other members of the House are very concerned about the slow nature of those documents being produced. And as I say, actions are going to have to take a new level here very soon,” he added.
Inspector General of the Justice Department Michael Horowitz has spent the last year looking into the FBI and DOJ’s actions relating to the probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server. Clinton faced major criticism for using a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State under the Obama administration — a decision that haunted her throughout her presidential campaign.
Horowitz’s report is expected to be made available to members of Congress in April. His team has said the classified information within the documents has slowed the process.
The private text messages between FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI agent Peter Strzok, criticizing then-candidate Trump during the 2016 election, are of particular interest to House Republicans. Republicans claim the text messages, in which Strzok called Trump an “idiot” and said the FBI could not “take the risk” of a Trump presidency, provide proof of an anti-Trump bias within the agency, particularly given Strzok is also reported to have played a role in the Clinton investigation.
Both Strzok and Page were also members of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating alleged collusion between Trump and Russia, but they were removed when the text messages came to light.
Just days ahead of his official resignation last week, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions after Horowitz determined that he had not been forthcoming about his handling of the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s email usage and that he had inappropriately leaked information to the media.
McCabe denied the accusations and claimed his firing was politically motivated due to the fact that he corroborated former FBI Director James Comey’s accusation that Trump had put pressure on him to end the Russia investigation.
Goodlatte has also called for a second special counsel to investigate the FBI’s handling of the Clinton probe.
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