On Thursday, a Republican Judiciary Committee aide stated that the Justice Department has failed to meet the deadline to report alleged abuse within Washington.
Committee Chairman and Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte stated that the DOJ has “not yet” compiled in handing over nearly 1.2 million documents related to Hillary Clinton’s email investigation, alleged abuses on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and even some details regarding former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s termination.
Though Goodlatte called out the DOJ for their negligence to meet the March 22 subpoena, he said that his committee is working with numerous officials in order to “take immediate steps to comply with the subpoena and produce documents to the Committee.”
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Fox News reported, documents of Clinton’s email investigation have been previously requested by Goodlatte, but, as of last month, only a “fraction” of those documents have been provided.
There have not been any documents chronicling the alleged FISA abuses given to the committee, the chairman added.
“Given the Department’s ongoing delays in producing these documents, I am left with no choice but to issue the enclosed subpoena to compel production of these documents,” said Goodlatte in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
The Justice Department responded to the March 22 letter saying that over two dozen FBI members have been involved in assisting the chairman with his request, stating that the documents would be given “on a rolling basis.”
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The department also stated that it would respond with documents every 10 to 14 days in order to fulfill the request.
Along with the documents requested, Goodlatte and other Washington lawmakers have also demanded the DOJ appoint a second special counsel to both of the cases regarding FISA abuse and Clinton’s email scandal in order to investigate the actions of current and former officials.
“I want a special counsel to be appointed with the same resources and the same determination to look at those issues as Mueller is looking at the Trump campaign,” Senator Lindsey Graham told “Fox News Sunday.”
Graham and other public figures have called for an investigation outside of the Justice Department. Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch also alluded to concerns within the DOJ that much of the details within the Trump-Russia dossier and FISA documents eventually lead to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
“I think a special counsel is still going to be needed, but I do think this is a very important step in the right direction,” Goodlatte said, adding that it takes the investigation directly to “justice.”
The chairman said that there had been a “number of people” within the DOJ and other places in Washington who were engaged in “highly biased” activity during the 2016 presidential election and both of the investigations.
“This takes it to a respected U.S. attorney outside of Washington who has prosecutorial powers,” he said. “We already know that the inspector general of the department has been at work on this a long time. We are looking forward to seeing his report soon.”
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