Senators Press FBI To Stop Stonewalling Crossfire Hurricane Investigation Subpoenas

Jordan Davidson reporting for The Federalist

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Ron Johnson and Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Charles Grassley wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday requesting that he produce all of the information “relating to several unanswered or incomplete responses to ongoing oversight” by various Senate committees by Oct. 6.

The letter comes as the Russian collusion hoax meant to indict President Donald Trump peddled by Democrats and the mainstream media continues to crumble. 

In the letter, the senators reprimand the FBI director for his agency’s three specific failures to provide already requested and subpoenaed information, including documents and messages to their committees beginning in April related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. This evidence, the letter explains, has “remained hidden for too long,” especially since “public interest in these records is significant.”

In April, the Senate “requested all intelligence records, foreign or domestic, received or reviewed by the Crossfire Hurricane team, as well as all FBI records about those intelligence products.” The senators say the FBI ignored the request, which acknowledged the faults of the Steele dossier on which the surveillance of Trump was supposedly based, and instead pointed the Senate to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The requested and subpoenaed documents, the letter notes, would provide helpful insight into Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s divulgence to Congress in late September that Russian officials were “aware of Hillary Clinton’s campaign plan to accuse Donald Trump of being a Russian asset” and “top U.S. intelligence authorities knew of Russia’s knowledge of Clinton’s plans.”

Secondly, the letter deduces that while the FBI relinquished select “text or Lync messages” to and from former FBI Director James Comey, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page to Congress, the messages remain vague. While the chairmen note that the appendix of the inspector general’s report contains the context necessary to decode these messages, that particular section remains classified.

“In order to fully understand the meaning and context behind the aforementioned McCabe texts, as well as others, it is necessary for the Committees to possess and review all text messages relating to these matters,” the letter states. “For that reason, on September 24, 2020, our respective staff requested that the FBI produce all text and Lync messages involving members of the Crossfire Hurricane team.  The recent public disclosures show that the FBI has already collected and reviewed at least some subset of these records.  Accordingly, we ask that you produce those sets of records to us immediately.”

Lastly, the letter specifically requests “expedited consideration” of the fact that McCabe’s “unclassified text or Lync messages ” which are currently only available “in a reading room” be given up directly to those congressional committees that sought them.