FBI doubling the number of agents dedicated to supplying info on Clinton investigation
Mar 27, 2018 11:35 pm
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is stepping up efforts to comply with a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee by doubling the number of staffers committed to the task.
FBI Director Christopher Wray says he’ll cooperate with the request to provide documents showing how his agency investigated Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, but he asked for more time to do so.
A summons was issued last week by Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, requesting not only evidence from the Clinton probe, but also documentation relating to the firing of former agency deputy director Andrew McCabe as well as potential FISA abuses.
Wray announced in a statement on Tuesday that “Up until today, we have dedicated 27 FBI staff to review the records. The actual number of documents responsive to this request is likely in the thousands. Regardless, I agree that the current pace of production is too slow.”
So Wray said they’ll step up the pace, by “doubling the number of assigned FBI staff, for a total of 54, to cover two shifts per day from 8 am to midnight to expedite completion of this project.”
In response to Goodlatte’s request, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd submitted a letter to the congressman, explaining that the FBI has over 1,000 pages of “highly sensitive” documents related to Russia’s influence on the 2016 election. While Boyd says such evidence is difficult to produce, he assured Goodlatte that the FBI takes “the committee’s request for information seriously and seeks to accommodate all requests for information.”
According to Fox News, a Department of Justice insider says that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has also expressed his dissatisfaction with the FBI’s response time in complying with the committee’s request.
The informant said of Sessions, “He’s told Wray that the pace is unacceptable and that if the FBI needs to double the number of people working on this, then that’s what they need to do, but he is done seeing the Department criticized for the FBI’s slow walking of requests from Congress like the last administration when this request should be top priority.”
South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy is also working with Goodlatte to obtain information. After texts between two FBI agents prior to the 2016 presidential election recently exposed a possible bias toward Hillary Clinton, the House Committee made the request to determine whether or not any political bias within the Bureau impacted the agency’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting. Your comments are needed for helping to improve the discussion.