Congress to view Russia evidence
Follows Trump demand of DOJ investigation
• The U.S. Justice Department agreed to show congressional Republicans “highly classified” information they have demanded from the Russia probe, the White House said after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray met Monday with President Donald Trump.
The department also agreed to ask its official watchdog to look into “any irregularities” in its investigation of Trump’s campaign, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
The outcome of the meeting averted — at least for the moment — a potential showdown after Trump demanded in a tweet on Sunday that Justice investigate whether the FBI had an informant inside his 2016 presidential campaign.
“Based on the meeting with the president, the Department of Justice has asked the inspector general to expand its current investigation to include any irregularities with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s or the Department of Justice’s tactics concerning the Trump campaign,” Sanders said.
She said the men also agreed that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly would set up a meeting in which congressional leaders can review “highly classified and other information they have requested” from the Justice Department’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether anyone close to Trump colluded with the Kremlin.
Some Republican lawmakers have demanded sensitive internal documents they say will show the investigation was tainted by improper actions long before the appointment a year ago of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The president’s campaign sent out a fundraising plea to supporters shortly before the White House meeting. Titled “WORSE than Watergate,” it asked them to support Trump’s demand “that this abuse of power gets investigated.”
“This could be the greatest political scandal in American history,” the solicitation declared, in all-capital letters.
Rosenstein declined to answer questions from reporters upon his return from the White House.
Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani told Politico that Trump would ask the Justice Department officials to turn over to Congress and his legal team all memos they have about the purported informant. Trump tweeted that he would order the Justice Department to investigate the matter on Sunday.
“I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes — and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!” Trump said Sunday on Twitter.
Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, said in a tweet on Sunday that the president’s “claim of an embedded ‘spy’ is nonsense. His ‘demand’ DOJ investigate something they know to be untrue is an abuse of power, and an effort to distract from his growing legal problems.”
Trump’s demand marked the first time since firing FBI director James Comey last year that the president has sought to use the power of his office to counter the Russia investigation.
There’s no evidence that the FBI installed an informant or spy in Trump’s campaign, though the bureau did rely on an informant who was in contact with Trump associates, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The use of informants is routine in law enforcement investigations, even in their preliminary stages.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats also participated in Monday’s White House meeting, according to two U.S. officials. He will be part of the meeting Kelly will convene as well, Sanders said.