The New York Times published an article Monday targeting Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California for putting pressure on the Justice Department to produce certain documents.
The NYT accused Nunes, who serves as House Intelligence Committee chairman, of threatening top law enforcement officials after they failed to meet his demanding requests. (RELATED: Devin Nunes Claims There Is Evidence Of Collusion In The Russia Investigation)
“Devin Nunes of California, has issued increasingly bold demands for access to some of the Justice Department’s most sensitive case files,” the article reads. “He has courted a series of escalating confrontations over access to materials that are usually off limits to Congress under department policy. And when those efforts failed, he threatened top law enforcement officials — mostly Republicans appointed by Mr. Trump.”
The NYT claims Justice Department officials have expressed concern off the record that Nunes is part of an effort to start “mining government secrets for information they can weaponize against those investigating the president, including the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller.”
“Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who is overseeing the Russia investigation, has political considerations to weigh,” the piece read. “To completely withhold information could be politically untenable — and potentially put the Mueller investigation at risk — given the support Mr. Nunes enjoys from Mr. Trump.”
The distrust between Republican members of Congress and the Justice Department continues to build, as several members have publicly come out in favor of impeaching Rosenstein and appointing a new special counsel to investigate corruption within the federal government.
Nunes said he believes the federal government might have violated the law with its surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016 and is continuing to seek all related materials from the Justice Department.
Nunes’s fellow Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis said he might know the identity of a mole the FBI burrowed within the Trump campaign, but he said further investigation is needed to discover the truth.
“I think I may know the person just based on what I’ve learned, not even classified. But we don’t even need to know the name. We just need to know did they, in fact, target Trump’s campaign? Yes or no,” DeSantis said on “Fox & Friends” Monday. “It’s a very crucial fact to know, to see how all this thing started.”
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