Nearly one month after two congressional committees issued subpoenas, the Department of Justice has agreed to hand over documents related to investigative decisions it made surrounding the 2016 election, the chairmen of those committees said late Monday.
The 1.2 million documents concern two matters primarily — the FBI’s decision whether to charge former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for use of a private email server, and the agency’s obtaining a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Both the House Judiciary and House Oversight and Government Reform committees requested the documents in late October. After becoming frustrated with the pace of document production, the committees issued a subpoena March 22.
Republican Reps. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, the Judiciary chairman, and Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, the Oversight chairman, said in a statement that they began meeting with Justice Department officials on April 11 to access the documents.
The two Congressmen reached an agreement after meeting with John Lausch, current U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois who had been picked to respond to demands for Justice Department documents. Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd was also part of that meeting, according to the statement.
The statement did not say whether the documents would be sent to Congress or kept at the Justice Department for lawmakers to view. It also did not provide a timeline for when the documents would be made available.
“We look forward to reviewing the information to better understand the decisions made by the Department of Justice in 2016 and 2017,” Mr. Goodlatte said. “Congress has a constitutional responsibility to preserve the integrity of our justice system by ensuring transparency and accountability of actions taken.”
As Republicans became publicly frustrated with the pace of document production, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray doubled staff to 54 from 27 in March and added an extra shift to meet production demand.
Mr. Wray said at the time that the volume of papers and necessary number of redactions were slowing the process.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department agreed to hand over all of the documents requested by the House Intelligence Committee after a congressman threatened to impeach Mr. Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein over the delay.
The documents handed over to the Intelligence panel detailed the FBI’s probe of the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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