House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) on Sunday vowed to subpoena the Department of Justice (DOJ) this week if it does not provide Congress with certain documents related to the Russia investigation.
“I think a lot of light can be shed on that if the documents we have been requesting for quite some time are made public,” Goodlatte said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
{mosads}”So as a result of that, this week, if they’re not produced by tomorrow or Tuesday of this week, we are going to issue a subpoena to the Justice Department that expands upon the subpoena we issued earlier this year,” he continued.
Goodlatte’s comments followed a New York Times report that said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested wearing a wire during conversations with the president last spring. He also reportedly proposed recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office.
Goodlatte said the subpoena would include memos from former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe that are said to have laid out the claims that Rosenstein proposed recording Trump.
Other documents would include texts between former FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and materials pertaining to DOJ employee Bruce Ohr.
Goodlatte acknowledged that some of the documents that he and other conservatives are seeking could be released as a result of Trump’s order last week calling for the declassification of materials related to the Russia investigation.
“The Congress is entitled to see them unredacted, and they’re entitled to see them right now, and it’s especially important now that this new crisis of confidence has arisen in the conduct of Mr. Rosenstein,” Goodlatte said.
Goodlatte and other conservatives have long sought access to classified information that they allege will reveal bias within the Department of Justice against Trump. The retiring Virginia lawmaker joined Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday in calling for a second special counsel to be appointed to investigate such claims.