Panel targets alleged bias in Russia inquiry
FBI director, deputy attorney general threatened with contempt of Congress
WASHINGTON – House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has directed his staff to prepare a contempt of Congress resolution against FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for “hiding” a top agent’s suspected political bias against President Trump.
Nunes is taking the action in response to the removal of FBI agent Peter Strzok from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. His dismissal came after Justice Department investigators discovered text messages that appeared to criticize Trump.
Nunes, R-Calif., said his committee would vote on the contempt resolution this month unless Wray and Rosenstein provide all the information the committee is seeking by the close of business Monday.
Any contempt resolution would have to be approved by the full House. If the House approved it, they would send a contempt citation to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who would then decide whether to prosecute.
Strzok, a top counterintelligence agent who also helped run the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of State, was abruptly reassigned this summer to the bureau’s human resources office. His transfer came after the Department of Justice’s inspector general discovered communications involving him and another FBI official, Lisa Page, who also had been assigned to Mueller’s team.
Clinton was cleared of wrongdoing in the FBI’s investigation of her email practices.
Nunes said the committee had repeatedly sought information about Strzok’s reassignment without answers.
“By hiding from Congress, and from the American people, documented political bias by a key FBI head investigator for both the Russia collusion probe and the Clinton email investigation, the FBI and DOJ engaged in a willful attempt to thwart Congress’ constitutional oversight responsibility,” Nunes said in a statement released over the weekend.
“This is part of a months-long pattern by the DOJ and FBI of stonewalling and obstructing this Committee’s oversight work, particularly oversight of their use of the Steele dossier,” Nunes said. “These agencies should be investigating themselves.”
The Steele dossier is a compilation of documents by former British spy Christopher Steele that contains allegations, some of them salacious, about Trump’s ties to Russia. The dossier was compiled for Fusion GPS, a firm that conducted opposition research on Trump on behalf of Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, and the Democratic Party.
The Justice Department said it disagrees with Nunes’ characterization that top officials have been uncooperative with the committee. And the panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said Nunes was trying to distract from the committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Trump and his allies have jumped on the news about Strzok’s dismissal. The president has repeatedly dismissed the investigation as a “witch hunt” and tweeted Sunday that after the disclosures about Strzok, “Now it all starts to make sense!”