WaExaminer: The House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday will begin writing a resolution holding top FBI officials in contempt of Congress after the agency missed a Monday deadline to turn over key evidence the committee has been seeking for months.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has accused the FBI and Department of Justice of a “months-long pattern … of stonewalling and obstructing this committee’s oversight work.”
Those accusations boiled over during the weekend, after stories were leaked to the New York Times and Washington Post saying that FBI agent Peter Strzok, a key investigator in the Trump-Russian probe, was removed from the Russia probe after exchanging text messages critical of Trump to another FBI agent he was involved with romantically. Republicans had been seeking information about why he was removed, but were never told anything by FBI or Justice Department directly.
Nunes had also been seeking information about the FBI and Justice Department’s use of the Steele dossier, which contains damning but unverified information about President Trump.
But the Strzok leak was the last straw, and Nunes announced Saturday he has ordered committee staff to begin drafting a contempt of Congress citation for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and for FBI Director Christopher Wray unless they complied with the panels’ requests for information by the close of business on Monday.
After the story broke, Nunes said, the FBI and Justice Department agreed to make some of the witnesses available, but are still withholding many documents and other evidence the Intelligence panel is seeking, an aide said.
Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said the department has given the panel hundreds of pages of classified documents and multiple briefings, and has now allowed Strzok and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to meet with the panel.
While committee aides will start writing the contempt resolution Tuesday, Nunes has not set a date for the panel to consider the contempt charges.
If approved by the committee, the resolutions of contempt would be sent to the House floor for consideration, but only if Speaker Paul Ryan chooses to bring them up. A spokesman for Ryan did not respond to a request for comment about whether Ryan would bring contempt resolutions to the floor. read more
When has a House Committee been successful in a hearing and what was the outcome?
I can’t recall anything other that committee members being interviewed by the media. No indictments, no prosecution, and no discipline.
apparently the FBI’s motto of fidelity bravery and integrity thing doesn’t mean shit anymore. Hey guys, it’s time to come clean and let the fecal matter impact the rotary oscillator at a great speed. Partisanship has no place in the FBI or the DOJ.
A “resolution”, how …civilized. How about a squad of professional killers in full rattle, pay a visit to the slow walkers’ offices to see if they could speed things up.
I won’t be happy until I see perps under arrest in chrome bracelets doing a frog march before media cameras b’cast live.
File this under, Strongly worded statement
My best friends Dad was an FBI agent under J Edgar Hoover for nearly 20 years. He would be appalled by what has happened to the FBI.
Hit the agency in the pocket. Forbid any type of bonus (shouldn’t be any anyway) and freeze all wages till all the FOIA requests and sought after information is delivered.
We have deadlines enforced on us that are punishable with jail, it’s time for our employees to report to us with some punishment threatened.
PUT SOME TEETH INTO THESE SUBPOENAS AND DEMANDS, OR JUST STOP HAVING COMMITTEES.
Use, or get the power to physically force people to appear, lock them up, or just go get the evidence yourself by force.
Aside from that, there is no piece of paper they need to respect.
I’m sure they’re all shaking in their little open-toed, strapped, black pumps.
(I don’t know girls’ shoes, but you get the drift)
izlamo delenda est …