The Senate Judiciary Committee announced late on Monday that it would be voting to authorize issuing subpoenas to top Obama-era officials over their investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign and other related matters.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made the announcement in a press release saying that the subpoena authorization “covers a number of documents, communications and testimony from witnesses, including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Clapper, John Brennan, Sally Yates, and others.”
Assuming the vote passes, Graham’s subpoena would give the Committee access to:
- Documents and communications referenced in, and testimony at a hearing or deposition of any individual named or identified by pseudonym in, the report titled “Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation” issued by the U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General
- Documents and communications related to, and the testimony at a hearing or deposition of any current or former executive branch official or employee involved in, the Crossfire Hurricane investigation (including investigations opened under the Crossfire Hurricane umbrella) or the receipt or analysis of reports prepared by Christopher Steele (commonly referred to as the “Steele dossier”)
The 53 Obama-era officials that are listed as part of Graham’s subpoena included, “Trisha Anderson, Brian Auten, James Baker, William Barr, Dana Boente, Jennifer Boone, John Brennan, James Clapper, Kevin Clinesmith, James Comey, Patrick Conlon, Michael Dempsey, Stuart Evans, Tashina Gauhar, Carl Ghattas, Curtis Heide, Kathleen Kavalec, David Laufman, Stephen Laycock, Jacob Lew, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, Mary McCord, Denis McDonough, Arthur McGlynn, Jonathan Moffa, Sally Moyer, Mike Neufield, Sean Newell, Victoria Nuland, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Stephanie L. O’Sullivan, Lisa Page, Joseph Pientka, John Podesta, Samantha Power, E.W. “Bill” Priestap, Sarah Raskin, Steve Ricchetti, Susan Rice, Rod Rosenstein, Gabriel Sanz-Rexach, Nathan Sheets, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Glenn Simpson, Steve Somma, Peter Strzok, Michael Sussman, Adam Szubin, Jonathan Winer, Christopher Wray, and Sally Yates.”
The move comes after Attorney General William Barr said earlier in the day that the actions by the Obama-era officials was “unprecedented” in American history and that a “grave injustice” was done.
“And what happened to the president and I’ve said this many times, what happened to the president in the 2016 election and throughout the first two years of his administration was abhorrent,” Barr said. “It was a grave injustice and it was unprecedented in American history. The law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president.”
“The proper investigative and prosecutive standards of the department of justice were abused, in my view, in order to reach a particular result,” Barr continued. “We saw two different standards of justice emerge, one that applied to President Trump and his associates and the other that applied to everybody else. We can’t allow this ever to happen again. The Durham investigation is trying to get to the bottom of what happened, and it will determine whether there were any federal laws broken. And if there were, those who broke the laws will be held to account.”
Barr previously said in an interview with CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge that the investigation into the Trump campaign was not a legitimate investigation.
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