Judiciary chairman considers subpoenas
WASHINGTON — Sen. Charles E. Grassley, facing what he sees as Justice Department stonewalling, is considering subpoenas to compel several witnesses to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee and divulge what they know about President Donald Trump’s connections to Russia and his firing of James B. Comey as FBI director.
Grassley, R-Iowa, and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, have agreed that the witnesses are key to the panel’s investigation and they could compel them to appear despite apparent objections by the Justice Department and the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
The witnesses include two top FBI officials who worked alongside Comey, James Rybicki and Carl Ghattas, as well as Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman. Committee rules require Feinstein to sign off on subpoenas, and she has not made her position clear. But she has expressed her frustration with the delays.
“Nothing works in this area as we want it to because everything gets delayed,” Feinstein said Thursday. “Either this happens or that happens. It’s very difficult, but we are moving along.”
The Justice Department said this week it would not let the two FBI officials voluntarily testify before the committee in deference to Mueller’s work. And lawyers for Manafort, who has come under intense scrutiny by Mueller’s team, had apparently stopped returning the committee’s calls — even after reaching a deal to testify this summer.
The holdups have not entirely prevented the committee’s investigators from proceeding with its work. Investigators continue to pore over thousands of pages of documents, as well as transcripts from interviews with Donald Trump Jr. and Glenn Simpson, founder of the firm that produced a dossier of sensational claims about the president and Russia. But Judiciary committee members are growing more frustrated, since they see Comey’s tenure and firing as squarely under the panel’s oversight jurisdiction.
George Hartmann, a spokesman for Grassley, said the chairman and Feinstein had made an agreement in July “to do what it takes to get the testimony of five particular witnesses.”
“There’s no reason to make exceptions for these Justice Department witnesses,” Hartmann added.
Beyond subpoena power, Grassley and Feinstein have other powerful levers at their disposal, from offers of immunity for witnesses to holding up Justice Department nominees in need of the panel’s approval.
They have worked closely to push the investigation forward, agreeing to pursue matters as broad as the Obama Justice Department’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email case last year and the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russia to better understand Comey’s removal.
Part of the problem for committee investigators is that the effort began in earnest this summer, months after the appointment of Mueller and decisions by Congress’ two intelligence committees to investigate Russia-related matters. In many cases, the investigative teams are jockeying for the same witnesses and documentary evidence. And although they are in frequent consultation to minimize conflicts, there have been challenges.