Last Friday was the deadline for Donald Trump’s Department of Justice to produce the evidence behind Trump’s ridiculous charge that President Obama had tapped his phone. What the DOJ produced was … crickets. And following the crickets many, many people lined up to say there was no evidence.
Then two senators, Lindsey Graham and Sheldon Whitehouse, demanded that the FBI tell them if there was any investigation underway of the connections between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Which generated … bupkiss.
It was enough to make even Republicans explode.
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. ...
“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.”
As the day drew to a close in Washington, FBI Director James Comey hustled back into town for a behind-closed-doors meeting with Grassley, Dianne Feinstein, and other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Why did Comey finally show up?
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.
Grassley may have been the one screaming into the phone, but he’s far from the only Republican frustrated with the non-communication from the Trump regime.
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.”
Though Comey has made a handful of secret visits to the Senate Intelligence Committee, he’s been notably reluctant to make any kind of public statement, even of the most general sort—which is a notable change from Comey’s position before the election.
Grassley handed over the power to Sen. Lindsey Graham to keep digging until answers are generated.
“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.
