DOJ, citing Barr contempt vote, threatens to cut off negotiations with Congress over Mueller report

The Justice Department warned House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff if the panel moves forward with a contempt vote or other punishment against Attorney General William Barr, it will no longer work together on a deal that would allow members to view a less-redacted version of the Mueller report. In a letter sent Tuesday to Schiff, D-Calif., from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, the DOJ proposed a meeting this week with the Intelligence panel’s senior staff to continue to search for a compromise in response to 12 requests made by the committee. But that meeting won’t happen if the panel decides to punish Barr for failing to turn over the unredacted report, Boyd warned.

“Should the committee take the precipitous and unnecessary action of recommending a contempt finding or other enforcement action against the Attorney General, then the Department will not likely to be able to continue to work with the Committee to accommodate its interest in these materials.”

Boyd said the panel “is willing to work with the panel on a reasonable and realistic process,” to provide members with “information pertaining to counterintelligence and foreign-intelligence activities,” outlined but redacted in the Mueller report, which probed Russian interference in the 2016 election. The House Judiciary Committee cited Barr with contempt earlier this month for failing to turn over the unredacted version, even though the redactions are required by law. The Justice Department has offered a “minimally redacted” version for all members of the Intelligence Committee to view but Democrats have declined.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/congress/doj-citing-barr-contempt-vote-threatens-to-cut-off-negotiations-with-congress-over-mueller-report

Democrat claims four Trump campaign officials targeted by FISA investigations

Multiple Trump campaign officials were the subjects of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigations, a Democratic lawmaker said in a closed-door hearing late last year. If what Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, says is true, the scope of the FBI's FISA efforts for its counterintelligence investigation into President Trump's 2016 campaign and its ties to Russia span far wider than previously known. So far, it is only confirmed that the FBI obtained FISA warrants targeting onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page. During a hearing on Dec. 19 with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the transcript of which was released on Monday, Jackson Lee mentioned three other individuals.

"I want to talk about the spring, summer, and autumn of 2016. Carter Page, at the time, was suspected of being a Russian asset; George Papadopoulos had told the Australian ambassador that Russians had Hillary [Clinton] emails; Paul Manafort had been named Trump campaign manager; Michael Flynn was Trump's chief national security adviser and foreign policy adviser and, just yesterday, had a continuance in his sentencing," Jackson Lee said. "One thing that all of these persons had in common was that each was the subject of a FISA Court investigation, which we now know, and all were directly connected to Trump. As attorney general, you had the authority to oversee FISA application process. Is that correct?" Lynch replied "yes," after which Justice Department lawyer Bradley Weinsheimer cut in to say Jackson Lee's question "potentially gets into possibly classified information and also equities in an ongoing investigation." What followed was a back-and-forth about the "lead-up" to the question about Lynch overseeing the FISA application process that mentioned Papadopoulos, Manafort, and Flynn. Jackson Lee argued that she was only sharing a "statement of facts that are in the public domain."

Weinsheimer shot back, saying that "just because something is in the public domain does not mean that as the former attorney general, this witness can talk about it, because it could relate to classified information, and it could also affect equities relating to an ongoing investigation." When cleared to respond further, Lynch spoke broadly about the dangers of disclosing the name of anyone under surveillance. "Certainly, the release of the names of anyone under investigation or particular surveillance can do great harm in a number of ways to that person's reputation, to people's trust in the Department's ability to maintain confidences, and if anyone were, in fact, affiliated with a campaign for office, certainly there could be aspersions cast on the campaign because of their affiliation, as well," she said.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, later mentioned that the FBI director had informed lawmakers a few days prior that the FBI opened investigative files on four individuals, some of whom were associated with the Trump campaign, but not FISA applications. The first warrant application targeting Page was submitted in October 2016, after he left the Trump campaign, and three renewals followed at three-month intervals, including in January, April, and June 2017. The FISA documents were released with heavy redactions in July 2018.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/democrat-claims-four-trump-campaign-officials-targeted-by-fisa-investigations