Nunes Threatens to Impeach FBI's Wray and DOJ's Rosenstein Over Key Document

Update:

Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Devin Nunes (R-CA) has threatened to “hold in contempt and impeach” FBI Director Christopher Wray and Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if they don’t turn over a critical, unredacted two-page document requested by the Committee months ago:

Nunes letter to Rosenstein & Wray on April 4 demanding they comply w/the committee’s subpoena to review documents pertaining to the bureau’s investigation. In particular, the un-redacted version of the original investigative document. Deadline is tomorrow. https://t.co/zhp0QxVvV4 pic.twitter.com/YG8cYxbuID

— Nick Short 🇺🇸 (@PoliticalShort) April 11, 2018

The electronic communication (EC) in question is what reportedly prompted the FBI counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in 2016. It is considered a “central piece of information” in the Intel Committee’s ongoing investigation into the FBI and related matters, according to Fox News investigative journalist Sara Carter.

On Tuesday night, Rep. Nunes (R-CA) told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that he has reached a “boiling point” with both Rosenstein and Wray over the electronic communication, which is due Wednesday evening.

“We’re not going to just hold in contempt. We will have a plan to hold in contempt and to impeach,” Nunes said. “We’re not messing around here; they’re going to give us these two documents”:

.@DevinNunes: "We will have a plan to hold in contempt and to impeach." @IngrahamAngle: "To impeach Christopher Wray?"@DevinNunes: "Absolutely." pic.twitter.com/AxB0KGkHBO

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 11, 2018

Nunes told Ingraham that, sooner or later, Republicans would get the document, “which, if you believe what’s in the New York Times and Washington Post … was the information on an Australian diplomat talking to Mr. (George) Papadopoulos. That’s what they say is in the EC.”

Papadopoulos, an early adviser on Trump’s presidential campaign, pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts.

“So, somehow the New York Times has it, the American people have read it, but the U.S. Congress does not have that information,” the California congressman said.

“The fact that they’re not giving this to us tells me there’s something wrong here,” he added.

“We are going to get the document. We are going to get the two pages. They can either cough them up or now, or it’ll get really complicated starting (Wednesday) night and we’ll have to take all the steps necessary in order to get the documents,” Nunes insisted.

The chairman added that he doesn’t think it will come to that.

“I think they’re going to give us the documents,” he said.

Nunes isn’t the only Republican lawmaker “seriously” considering whether to hold officials at the DOJ in contempt of Congress over the DOJ’s slow-walking of subpoenaed documents.

“It’s a Judiciary Committee decision. They would vote it out and it would go to the House floor,” Meadows told reporters Tuesday night. “It is being seriously considered.”