House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes announced Wednesday evening that the committee had reached an agreement with the Justice Department about his outstanding document and witness requests related to the Russia investigation.
Nunes said in a statement that he spoke with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Wednesday evening and “looks forward to receiving access to the documents over the coming days.”
Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray had met with House Speaker Paul Ryan earlier Wednesday to discuss the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation.
The meetings occurred during a time of friction between the Justice Department and the committee over the investigation.
Nunes has been seeking testimony from top leadership at the FBI and the Justice Department regarding the FBI’s involvement with a dossier, created by Fusion GPS, that includes allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about President Donald Trump. Nunes, a California Republican, went so far as to threaten top officials at the department and the FBI with contempt of Congress in December if they did not meet his subpoena demands. The Ryan meeting was at Rosenstein’s request, an aide to Republican leadership told CNN.
Rosenstein ignored reporters’ questions on his way out of the meeting with the House speaker.
A source with knowledge of the Ryan meeting said it centered on Nunes’ outstanding document requests related to the dossier and his ongoing threats of contempt of Congress citations — not the special counsel investigation led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller.
In addition to the debate over Nunes’ requests, the House Intelligence Committee itself has had problems. Differences in conclusions split along party lines on the committee are making it increasingly likely that it will end up releasing two very different reports at the end of the investigation.
GOP leaders on the House panel are eager to wrap up the investigation soon, with influential Republicans saying the exhaustive review has dug through thousands of documents and interviewed virtually every major witness and has found scant evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives to meddle in the 2016 elections.
But Democrats on the committee say there have been several areas that have not been fully investigated, including financial records from the Trump Organization and key officials in Trump’s orbit, and that they are seriously weighing issuing their own report detailing what they view as the unexplored parts of the inquiry.