Over the past few months, the Department of Justice has been requested to hand over documents as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference.
Documents relating to the firing of former FBI Director James Comey are now of particular interest to Mueller’s team, as well as emails about Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the investigation, ABC News reported on Sunday. Both Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had key roles in Comey’s dismissal, and have since been the subject of President Donald Trump’s criticism.
The subpoena by the special counsel is the first records request issued to the Justice Department, which is overseeing the probe. A source said investigators are now requesting communications between officials of the Justice Department, as well as contacts with the White House. Several former senior officials of the Justice Department were also asked for information regarding their time there.
This move shows that Mueller is still looking into whether the president or any of the officials in his administration attempted to influence an ongoing investigation. While Sessions said he was open to collaboration with the special counsel, Trump has repeatedly dismissed the federal investigation and the intelligence community’s findings that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election.
Right before Comey was fired, Trump wrote a memo outlining his reasons for removing the former FBI director, which Sessions and Rosenstein publicly supported by releasing their own memos in which they criticized Comey for his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
Sessions was later attacked by Trump for his recusal, which prompted the president to claim he would have never nominated the attorney general for the Justice Department if he had known Sessions would give up oversight of the investigation. In September, Mueller also allegedly requested that the White House hand over documents connected to some of the most controversial actions of President Trump in office, such as Comey’s firing.
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