[ad_1]
The movement seems set to thaw a tidy confrontation between Republican lawmakers and the Department of Justice. | Getty
The FBI handed Congress thousands of documents this week, including information on Russian contacts with President Donald Trump's campaign, according to letters sent Friday by the bureau to three GOP committee chairs.
The documents provided this week include details on some of the FBI's most sensitive programs, including a case on the FBI's justification for obtaining a court-ordered arrest warrant for spying on a former Trump campaign assistant in the United States. October 2016.
History Suite below
The move appears poised to thaw a tidy confrontation between Republican lawmakers and the Justice Department, although President Paul Ryan's office has said that there are some "exceptional items" that require more time. A letter from the FBI responded to requests for papers from House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Formulated in August 2017, as well as in March and April. The other was the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), And the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Trey Gowdy (RSC), who issued a major summons to testify in March.
The files continued to arrive on Capitol Hill until Friday, according to the office, when the FBI submitted a classified letter to the House Intelligence Committee specifying whether the FBI had relied on informants about the Russian interference before the official opening of his investigation.
Also on Friday, the FBI handed over 1400 pages of documents to the Judiciary and House Oversight Committees regarding requests from senior FBI officials or the Department of Justice to review or manage oversight files. .
The documents, for the moment, seem to have cooled tensions between FBI and House of Republican leaders, who had threatened to hold senior officials in contempt of Congress for failing to provide swiftly more information. Ryan was involved in the growing conflict last week, and his office said the negotiations had been productive – if not complete. Nunes, Goodlatte and Gowdy decried the murmurs of the agency, although FBI officials insisted that they were working quickly to respond to unprecedented demands for information.
"Our efforts have allowed the committees to finally have access to the information sought several months ago, but some important demands still need to be addressed," said AshLee Strong, spokesman for President Paul Ryan, who is involved. "Additional time has been requested for the outstanding items, and based on our understanding of the process, we believe this request is reasonable."
Among the pending issues is a request by Nunes for documents related to the so-called Steele dossier – a collection of memos compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele describing an illicit conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign to help Trump to be elected. Trump called the record of fiction, and the Republicans seized on evidence that Steele's work was indirectly funded by the campaign of his political rival Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
In his letters – signed by Acting Assistant Director Jill Tyson – the FBI said it still ran up to 65,000 "Top Secret" internal emails to find information on how the Steele Record was used to obtain monitoring warrants.
Tyson noted that the FBI's Science and Technology Branch had developed a specific research tool to screen these highly secretive communications to meet congressional demands.
"To accomplish this production, the FBI has transferred resources from other Congressional production projects and adds staff to speed up the examination and processing," she writes. "FBI staff will work over the weekend to advance production."
One request, however, the FBI spent at the office of National Intelligence Director Dan Coats: a request for summary transcripts of FBI informant conversations with Trump campaigners.
The identity of an informant was recently made public in reports: Stefan Halper, a Cambridge scholar and veteran of three presidential administrations. Halper made contact with Trump campaigners in the summer of 2016 and in 2017. Trump has slammed the existence of confidential informants, claiming without proof that his political opponents had implanted a "spy" in his campaign.
The FBI, according to its letter to the oversight and justice committees, is also working on a classified letter to detail any communication on its use of surveillance "on the Clinton Foundation or associates or in communication with the Clinton Foundation. It has proven to be "difficult to approach" and wants to consult with the committees for more details on the information they are looking for.
Democrats have raised growing concerns about the intrusion of GOP claims. Republicans have argued that their demands for information are part of a constitutional responsibility to oversee the FBI and the Justice Department, but Democrats and some FBI supporters say their efforts appear to provide support for Trump for the ongoing investigation into his contacts with the Kremlin. related individuals. This investigation is now led by Special Advisor Robert Mueller.
Source link
