Grassley accuses law enforcement officials of withholding information in Trump-Russia probe
WASHINGTON – Sen. Charles Grassley on Wednesday accused federal law enforcement officials of lying to lawmakers about their willingness to share information with them as part of congressional oversight.
The Iowa Republican was responding to a question about whether FBI Director James B. Comey had provided the same information to the Intelligence committees as he has to Grassley’s Judiciary panel, both of which are probing Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 elections.
“Every time they come up here for their nomination hearing and I ask them are you going to answer phone calls and our letters and are you going to give us the documents you want? And every time we get a real positive yes! And then they end up being liars!” Grassley said, screaming into the phone. “It’s not if they’re treating us differently than another committee. It’s if they’re responding at all.”
Grassley made the accusations in an interview with the Washington Post as he waited for information from Comey about whether the FBI is indeed investigating alleged Russian interference in last year’s presidential elections.
The Iowa Republican’s accusations come as lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol ramp up their investigations of the alleged links between the Trump team and Russian officials. Angered they have not gotten information from the Justice Department – where the FBI is housed – some are openly threatening the intelligence community with subpoenas and other consequences if they do not start sharing information with lawmakers.
Grassley said he was told by staffers on Wednesday morning that he would be receiving “a positive answer” from Comey at some point that day, but as of early afternoon none had arrived.
Grassley has been asking the FBI for a briefing into matters involving allegations of links between the Trump administration and the Kremlin for several weeks, which he said Comey promised would come during a phone call with him and Judiciary Committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., last week. But it never materialized – so Grassley informed the Justice Department he would hold up further consideration of the Trump administration’s nominee for deputy attorney general until the FBI responds to the committee’s inquiries.
“That seems to have gotten their attention,” Grassley said.
Comey has been making regular trips to Capitol Hill to brief members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Gang of Eight – party and intelligence committee leaders who receive the highest-level intelligence briefings – on matters related to allegations Russia interfered in the 2016 elections. But the Judiciary committee has received no similar briefing, despite repeated requests.
Grassley said he’s unsure how other Republican colleagues feel about Comey’s reluctance to explain the FBI’s ongoing investigations, but he said: “I imagine a lot of them are much more frustrated than I’ve just demonstrated to you.”
One of those other members, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is also hitting a breaking point in his frustrations with the Justice Department. On Wednesday, he joined Grassley in pledging to block the nomination of Rod Rosenstein as the No. 2 man at the Justice Department – though preventing Rosenstein from starting his job sooner may only hurt those looking to get to the bottom of the matter. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a close Trump ally who served as a campaign adviser, has recused himself from investigating anything related to the president – meaning it would fall to the deputy attorney general to take charge of such inquiries.
“Well, I want an answer to my letter,” Graham said in an interview. “If there is a criminal investigation regarding the Trump campaign and ties to Russia, I want to know about it because we’re doing congressional investigations of all-things Russia. I don’t want to run into a criminal investigation not knowing it’s out there.”
Grassley has given Graham, who chairs the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, the reins of the full committee inquiry into allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections.
Graham argued Wednesday morning that it is vital that he know whether the FBI has an active criminal investigation surrounding Trump so that his inquiry doesn’t get in the way.
“Is there an investigation? Because I need to know before I move forward into investigating Russia from a congressional lense – I don’t want to interfere with a criminal investigation if there is one,” he said. He added, however, that he thinks “the entire country needs to know if there’s something there there.”
Graham said he communicated the Wednesday deadline to Comey during a meeting he and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., held with the FBI director two weeks ago. Since then, he and Whitehouse have sent a formal letter to the Justice Department, asking for any proof that wiretapping warrants were sought, or issued, against Trump and his associates. Trump alleged – without proof – in a recent tweet that President Barack Obama had wiretapped his offices during the presidential campaign.
“We’ll issue a subpoena to get the information, we’ll hold up the deputy attorney general’s nomination until Congress is provided with information to finally clear the air as to whether or not there was ever a warrant issued against the Trump campaign,” said Graham, who is leading the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of allegations of Trump-Russia ties.
Across the Capitol, leaders of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence had kinder words for Comey, who ranking member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said has been “more forthcoming on a number of the issues I was concerned about” in recent days.
But they too worry that their work is being stymied by slow-walking in the intelligence community – particularly when it comes to furnishing proof to back up the president’s claims he was the subject of wiretapping.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that Trump is “very confident” that his wiretapping claim will be substantiated, although he acknowledged that Obama did not personally tap Trump’s phones.
But committee chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif. – who served on Trump’s transition team – declared flatly there was no evidence that Trump Tower was wiretapped as the president claimed last fall, while he was still a candidate.
“I don’t think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower,” Nunes said. He added that if you are taking Trump’s tweets literally – which he said you shouldn’t do – then “clearly the president was wrong.”
Nunes and Schiff sent a letter on Wednesday to spy chiefs demanding a complete list of people whose names have been improperly “unmasked” after popping up in other surveillance – as they said happened when authorities discovered former national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn had contacts with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. If that information isn’t provided by Friday, Nunes said he would likely subpoena the information.
The two committee leaders also complained Wednesday that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has not yet set up a computer to facilitate the committee’s review of documents pertaining to its Russia investigation, forcing members to resort to the slower process of combing through documents and taking notes entirely by hand.
Comey is expected to appear before the House Intelligence Committee on Monday to brief lawmakers in an open hearing on issues surrounding allegations of Russian interference in the election. National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers is also expected to testify during that hearing; other, former administration officials are expected to the House Intelligence Committee in a second open hearing on March 28.
The House intelligence panel gave the Justice Department an extension until Monday, the day of the open hearing, to answer its letter demanding to see evidence of such wiretaps, before Nunes is expected to consider subpoenaing the information.
Most members of Congress who have commented on the claims say they do not think there was ever an approved wiretap against Trump, and not a single Intelligence Committee member has said they have seen evidence suggesting the action. Although the intelligence panels are expected to look into the allegations, many have challenged the president to back up his accusation before Congress gets too deeply involved.
“I don’t think there’s a warrant, but I wish they’d tell me one way or the other,” Graham said Wednesday. He added this advice to the president: “If you want to challenge the Congress to do things in the future, we’ll take you up on it.”