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House GOP releases findings from probe of FBI, Justice

Department

By Karoun Demirjian
December 28 at 8:04 PM
The outgoing Republican committee chairmen in charge of a year-long probe of how the FBI and
Justice Department handled investigations into the Trump campaign’s alleged Russia ties and Hillary
Clinton’s emails once again called for a second special counsel to look into such matters in a letter to
top administration and congressional officials summing up their work.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Oversight and Government Reform
Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) sent their letter to acting attorney general Matthew G.
Whitaker, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.). In it, they encouraged them to pick up where the House panels left off and
“continue to identify and eliminate bias” at the federal law enforcement agencies “so the public can
trust the institutions to make decisions solely on the facts and the law and totally devoid of political
bias or consideration.”

“Our 2016 presidential candidates were not treated equally,” Goodlatte and Gowdy wrote in a
statement accompanying the release of the letter. “The investigators in both investigations were
biased against President Trump.”

The House GOP leaned heavily on details in an inspector general report released earlier this year to
make their arguments about bias having infected the FBI and DOJ’s proceedings. The inspector
general’s report found that while certain individuals, such as former top FBI counterintelligence
officer Peter Strzok, displayed clear personal bias against Trump, there was no evidence that the
conclusions of the investigations themselves were biased.

Nonetheless, Republicans and Democrats have openly warred over the implications of the inspector
general report and their own investigation for months. Democrats have frequently charged that the
GOP used the congressional investigation as a means of discrediting the work that provided the
foundation for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s ongoing probe of Russian interference in the
2016 presidential election. Republican leaders denied that charge in their letter, arguing that
“whatever product is produced by the Special Counsel must be trusted by Americans and that requires
asking tough but fair questions about investigative techniques both employed and not employed.”
But after dozens of mostly closed-door interviews and months of high-profile partisan clashes, the
seven-page letter comes as a remarkably quiet ending — with lawmakers offering no discernibly new
insights or recommendations for how the federal law enforcement agencies erred or might improve
their work.

Alongside the call for a second special counsel — which Goodlatte and Gowdy first formally called for
back in March — the panel leaders recommended that others take a closer look at the process of
securing warrants to conduct surveillance on individuals, as well as how much detail investigators are
required to provide the secret court that approves such warrants about “informant or source issues
and the divulging of bias information.” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), the incoming chairman of
the Senate Judiciary Committee, has already told reporters that he plans to take up this issue.

In the letter, GOP panel leaders criticize the decisions several of the witnesses testified to making
during the investigations. In particular, they focus on those of former FBI director James B. Comey,
pitting his testimony against that of former FBI general counsel James Baker, whose comments, they
said, suggested that Comey possibly erred in deciding not to prosecute Clinton over her use of a
private email server.

The Republican chairmen also cite Baker’s testimony to reiterate a criticism of Deputy Attorney
General Rod J. Rosenstein, who they say should have returned to Capitol Hill for a closed-door
interview about his reported comments that he suggested recording Trump and then trying to invoke
constitutional procedure to remove him from office. Such an interview was scheduled with panel
leaders in late October but abruptly canceled amid an outcry from rank-and-file panel Republicans,
who felt they too should be allowed to pepper Rosenstein with questions. Some of those panel
members, led by Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), also sought to have
Rosenstein impeached.

Jordan will take over as the top Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform panel in just a
few days, at which point the Democrats taking over House leadership — and the chairmanship of the
panels — are expected to dramatically alter, if not formally shutter, the probe.

The letter from Gowdy and Goodlatte was not accompanied by the release of any transcripts from
interviews that have not yet been made public. A classified version of the panels’ findings is being
made available to members.

Karoun Demirjian
Karoun Demirjian is a congressional reporter covering national security, including defense, foreign policy,
intelligence and matters concerning the judiciary. She was previously a correspondent based in The Post's bureau
in Moscow. Follow !
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