House committee subpoenas FBI, Justice over Trump dossier
In the most significant escalation yet in the wrangling between Congress and the FBI over the Trump dossier, the House Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed the bureau and the Justice Department for documents relating to the dossier, the FBI's relationship with dossier author Christopher Steele, and the bureau's possible role in supporting what began as an opposition research project against candidate Donald Trump in the final months of last year's presidential campaign.
The subpoenas are an indication of growing frustration inside the committee over the FBI and Justice Department's lack of cooperation in the Trump-Russia investigation.
The committee issued the subpoenas -- one to the FBI, an identical one to the Justice Department -- on August 24, giving both until last Friday, September 1, to turn over the information.
Neither FBI nor Justice turned over the documents, and now the committee has given them an extension until September 14 to comply.
Illustrating the seriousness with which investigators view the situation, late Tuesday the committee issued two more subpoenas, specifically to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, directing them to appear before the committee to explain why they have not provided the subpoenaed information.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/house-committee-subpoenas-fbi-justice-over-trump-dossier/article/2633466
Hunt for Trump dossier author inflames Russia probe
An overseas trip to contact a former British spy exposes friction among House, Senate investigators and special counsel Robert Mueller.
By ALI WATKINS
08/04/2017 05:07 AM EDT
Two Republican House Intelligence Committee staffers traveled to London earlier this summer to track down the former British intelligence operative who compiled a controversial dossier on President Donald Trump and Russia, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The previously unreported trip underscores the importance of the 35-page dossier Christopher Steele wrote last year to congressional probes into possible collusion between Moscow and the 2016 Trump campaign.
It also has inflamed simmering tensions between House and Senate investigators as they pursue simultaneous probes into the Trump-Russia connection. House Intelligence Committee Republicans did not tell Democrats on the panel, the Senate Intelligence Committee nor special counsel Robert Mueller’s office that the investigators were pursuing Steele.
The House staffers left their contact information at two addresses associated with Steele, a former agent for Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence service. One of those locations was Steele’s lawyer’s office, where the former spy was meeting with his counsel when the House investigators showed up.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/04/trump-steele-dossier-russia-241299
