https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2018/09/25/gop-comey-lynch-yates-fbi-bias-probe-842409

GOP invites Comey, Lynch and Yates to testify on FBI bias claims

House Republicans are preparing to call their highest-profile witnesses yet in a year-long investigation into the FBI and Justice Department's actions in 2016 and 2017 — including former FBI Director James Comey, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy issued requests for interviews with the three high-profile former officials in letters sent Friday and Monday, committee sources confirmed. The letters ask each prospective witness to arrange a time to testify as quickly as possible.

Other witnesses who received requests include Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of Fusion GPS; former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos; former Justice Department deputy counterintelligence chief Richard Scott and former FBI official Bill Sweeney.

The large slate of requests suggests the panels leading the probe are entering the most crucial phase of their work and may still have weeks to go before interviews are complete. That leaves a narrow window for lawmakers to issue findings ahead of the 2018 congressional elections and could push their work into the lame-duck session of Congress. It likely ensures a revolving door of witness interviews during the sensitive final weeks of the campaign.

Democrats on the committees are livid over what they say was deception by the committee Republicans arranging the interviews, suggesting they weren't informed about the requests until after they were made. In addition, the requests indicated that Democrats had been CC'ed, informing them of the interview requests. But in fact, Republicans had not informed them of the requests, they said, leaving a false impression with the invited witnesses that the minority party was aware.