HPSCI Issues Subpoena for Counterintel and Foreign Intel Materials in Mueller Report

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“For the last month and a half, the Committee has engaged the Department of Justice in a good faith effort to reach an accommodation of our requests for all of the foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information related to the Special Counsel’s investigation, and the Mueller report and its underlying materials. The Department has repeatedly failed to respond, refused to schedule any testimony, and provided no documents responsive to our legitimate and duly authorized oversight activities.

“As both the Special Counsel and the Department of Justice have recognized, the Congress has a vital constitutional role in evaluating misconduct by the Executive Branch, including the President, and to assess and refine laws that address the ‘sweeping and systematic’ invasion of our democracy by Russia. We therefore need these materials in order to do our job. The Department’s stonewalling is simply unacceptable.

“The Department repeatedly pays lip service to the importance of a meaningful accommodation process, but it has only responded to our efforts with silence or outright defiance. Today, we have no choice but to issue a subpoena to compel their compliance. If the Department continues to ignore or rejects our requests, we will enforce our request in Congress and, if necessary, the courts.

“The law is on our side. The Committee’s efforts to obtain necessary documents to do our constitutionally-mandated oversight work will not be obstructed.”

The subpoena follows two bipartisan letters sent with Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) on March 27, 2019 and April 25, 2019. In both letters, Schiff and Nunes requested that all materials, regardless of form and classification, obtained or produced by the Special Counsel’s Office during its investigation, be produced to the Committee.

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