Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Committee is in receipt of the two letters (classified and unclassified) from the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) which were transmitted on June 22, 2018, at 7:37 p.m. and 11:10
p.m., respectively. While the late-night letters, once again received by the Committee just before
the deadline, address many of the questions outlined in the Committee’s outstanding subpoenas,
they have raised more questions than answers. These questions include whether the FBI and
Department of Justice (DOJ) leadership intend to obey the law and fully comply with duly
authorized congressional subpoenas.
Pursuant to the Committee’s subpoena issued on April 30, 2018, which was served on Attorney
General Sessions and then delegated to you due to the Attorney General’s recusal, all
components of the DOJ, including but not limited to the FBI, were required to provide full and
complete access to all responsive documents to the Committee. However, you have unilaterally
restricted access to these materials to the “Gang of Eight.” As the Committee has repeatedly
stated, this is unacceptable. Moreover, the alleged referral of the “Committee’s request for
transcripts or summaries of conversations between human source(s) and Trump campaign
officials” to the Director of National Intelligence does not relieve the FBI and DOJ from full
compliance with the Committee’s subpoena.
Furthermore, the Committee is concerned that the letters lack a comprehensive response with
respect to questions about the use of confidential human sources during a certain timeframe, and
the narrowly tailored language represents a wholly insufficient response to the Committee’s
requests.
For more than a year, the Committee has been struggling to get the DOJ, including the FBI, to
comply with duly issued subpoenas. In many instances, information provided to the Committee
has been incomplete, and the Committee is later told that additional responsive information was
not provided because it was not specifically requested. The Committee, however, should not be
required to ask “the magic question” in order to obtain all relevant and responsive documents
that have already been compelled.
The Committee again must enforce the terms agreed to by you and Director Wray on behalf of
your respective agencies. However, the June 22 communications came exclusively from the FBI
and not from you or the DOJ, leaving the Committee unclear about who is assuming ultimate
responsibility for fulfilling our requests.
Finally, we request that you provide the Committee with responses to the following questions
by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, June 25, 2018:
Please do not hesitate to contact Committee staff at (202) 225-4121 should you have
any questions.
Copy to: The Honorable Christopher A. Wray, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation