House Receives Unredacted Version of Document That Started Russia Probe

The Justice Department has given House lawmakers access to a two-page document that the FBI used as the foundation for starting its original counterintelligence investigation into the possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

A Justice Department official confirmed to The Hill on Wednesday that all members of the House Intelligence Committee received access to the document.

Committee Chair Devin Nunes was requesting access to the unredacted document saying that previous “heavily” redacted versions were not sufficient for the Republican Committee investigation into the supposed abuses at the Justice Department.

Nunes and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy had a meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Wednesday afternoon just one day after Nunes threatened to initiate impeachment proceedings against Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray if they did not comply with the request for the unredacted document.

“During the meeting, we were finally given access to a version of the [Electronic Communication] that contained the information necessary to advance the Committee’s ongoing investigation of the Department of Justice and FBI,” Nunes said in a statement.

“Although the subpoenas issued by this Committee in August 2017 remain in effect, I’d like to thank Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein for his cooperation today,” he added.

Meanwhile, a Justice Department official  stated that the remaining redactions in the document are “narrowly tailored to protect the name of a foreign country and the name of a foreign agent.” Specific names have been replaced with identifiers like “foreign official” and “foreign government,” the official said.

 “These words must remain redacted after determining that revealing the words could harm the national security of the American people by undermining the trust we have with this foreign nation,” the official said, adding that they appear “only a limited number of times, and do not obstruct the underlying meaning of the document.”

However, several conservatives are investigating what they claim is evidence that the FBI’s activities during the 2016 election were biased.

The Democrats consider these accusations as a transparent effort to muddy the waters around Mueller.

 

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