Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham revealed this week that his committee has authorized subpoenas for over 50 officials who worked in the Obama administration and played a role in the Russia investigation.
Graham, who committee is looking into the origin of the Russia probe, said he has received official authorization to issue subpoenas related to the FISA applications and the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
The committee voted in favor of the authorization in a 12-10 vote.
Now, Graham can issue subpoenas seeking documents, communications, and testimony from witnesses, including fired FBI Director James Comey, fired Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former DNI Chief James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, and others.
“I want to know why all these counterintelligence investigations were opened to begin with. I think we need to look long and hard at how these investigations got off the rails,” Graham said, Fox News reported.
“This Committee is not going to sit on the sidelines and simply move on. I can assure you we’re not going to be deterred. If we have to do it by ourselves, we will. The American people deserve answers to these questions and we intend to get them,” he added.
Despite major pushback from Democrats, Graham said questions still remain over whether the FBI, DOJ, and other top law enforcement agencies conspired to spy on the Trump campaign.
“It’ll be a collaborative process, but you’re trying to stop me from doing something I think the country needs to do and I’m not going to be stopped,” Graham said.
The committee also agreed that they want to hear from a representative for former special counsel Robert Mueller.
Last week, Graham revealed that he has been denied access to the FBI agents who met with a key source for the Steele dossier who had disavowed the unsubstantiated document.
Graham said he made requests on June 7th to interview an FBI case agent and supervisory intelligence analyst who met with the primary source of former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele.
From late 2015 to early 2016, the left-wing firm Fusion GPS hired Steele to compile the dossier.
Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee paid Fusion GPS roughly $8 million to fund Steele’s dossier, which led to the entire Trump-Russia witch hunt.
Graham requested to meet with at least two top FBI officials who spoke with Steele and a source that he used to compile his dossier — and the FBI won’t allow it.
“I made a request to interview the case agent and the intel analyst and there were two other people who interviewed the subsource for three days in January, again in March, again in May, and they’re denying me the ability to do that,” Graham said during an interview Sunday on Fox News.
He didn’t give details about when the requests were made and who had denied the access, but he added that he was “going to keep working the system.”
Graham also said during the interview that he didn’t believe that the case agent and intel analyst were the only few people who knew that the Steele dossier had been debunked before it was used to obtain new FISA warrants to monitor Page.
He added that he’s determined to hold accountable any officials who had knowledge about the FBI’s interview with the subsource but continued to approve the FISA warrants.
“We’re not going to let the system blame some low-level intel analyst or case agent for defrauding the court,” he said. “I believe it goes up to the very top, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it, and that means [former Deputy Attorney General] Sally Yates and [former Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein, and [former FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe and [former FBI Director James] Comey are all going to come before the committee and they’re going to be asked, ‘What did you know and when did you know it?’”
Author: Martywalsh
Source: Trending Politics: BOOM! Graham Authorizes Subpoenas For 50+ Obama-Era Officials Amid Russia Probe Review
