House Republicans are crying foul after a Politico article claimed the publication had uncovered a secretive congressional investigation into political corruption at the FBI and the overall Justice Department.
A Wednesday article in Politico headlined “House Republicans quietly investigate perceived corruption at DOJ, FBI” was wildly inaccurate in its suggestion of secrecy — and House Republicans are angry.
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A secret investigation, with closed meetings about Russian hacking into the 2016 presidential race, is an explosive charge, and sure enough, it shot around the internet within hours of its posting. Searching “Nunes secret investigation,” for example, generated more than 9,500 results on Google News alone. The assertion was repeated by Salon, the Daily Mail, and The Hill.
“Partisan witch hunt: House Republicans are secretly investigating the DOJ and FBI,” read the Salon rewrite on Wednesday.
But the House investigation of the FBI and Justice Department was publicly disclosed weeks ago, beginning officially when House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) discussed it on December 8, in an interview with Fox News.
“Nunes publicly confirmed for the first time a month-long probe that goes well beyond the Russia case into the surveillance of Americans through the FISA [for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act], or the national security courts,” Fox News’ Catherine Herridge reported.
In that interview, Nunes revealed he had reason to believe that President Donald Trump, who Democrats believe colluded with Russians in the 2016 election, affected the judgment of the FBI and Justice officials.
“I hate to use the word corrupt, but they’ve become at least so dirty that who is watching the watchmen?” said Nunes. “Who is investigating these people? There is no one.”
But even before Nunes confirmed the investigation, it was hardly a secret. On October 25, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) rebuked the FBI and Justice officials for slow-walking subpoenas from Nunes and other committee members.
“We’ve had these document requests with the administration, with the FBI in particular, for a long time, and they’ve been stonewalling,” Ryan told Reuters on October 25.
Even before Nunes confirmed the investigation, it was hardly a secret.
House Republicans have been looking into how the FBI and the Justice Department handled the “dirty dossier,” the negative research on Trump compiled for Fusion GPS by former British spy Christopher Steele.
But many days after Nunes made his remarks to Fox News, Politico reported on Wednesday that Republicans were “gather[ing] secretly for weeks in the Capitol in an effort to build a case that senior leaders of the Justice Department and FBI improperly — and perhaps criminally — mishandled the contents of a dossier that describes alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia.”
When LifeZette asked Politico spokesman Brad Dayspring why his publication labeled the investigation “secret” even though Fox News had previously reported it, Dayspring scoffed at the fact that an anonymous Republican source criticized the Politico report. When reminded Politico uses anonymous sources in stories, Dayspring got defensive.
“What the hell are you talking about? This [the source’s remark] isn’t a story, it’s a criticism,” Dayspring said in an email to LifeZette. “If someone wants to offer criticism, fine. Then put their name on record to do so. Otherwise it’s not a ‘story.’ And I think you know that.”
Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. But Mueller’s probe has been marred by evidence of inappropriate partisanship and anti-Trump bias.
Nunes wants to learn more about those issues, but for all his questions, he has been attacked by Democrats and media pundits. He recused himself from the Russia investigation in March after the House Ethics Committee launched an examination of whether he divulged classified information to the media. (Nunes stayed on as the intelligence panel’s chairman, a fact many media outlets glossed over.)
Nunes was cleared December 8, after an oddly long House Ethics Committee investigation, the same day he went public with the investigation into how the FBI and Justice Department handled the dossier and their handling of Trump-Russia surveillance issues.
The dossier is full of salacious and bizarre rumors about Trump. But because of its weakly sourced nature, it has also helped undermine Trump’s enemies.
Peter Strzok, a top FBI agent formerly in charge of examining the dossier and Russian influence, was reassigned over the summer, after the Justice Department’s Inspector General discovered hundreds of text messages on Strzok’s phone that were critical of Trump during the 2016 campaign.
And the Justice Department recently demoted Bruce Ohr, a former associate deputy attorney general, after it was learned he met with Steele in the summer of 2016.
As for the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, Nunes was eager to point out the irony of the whole investigation.
“We have no evidence of Russian collusion between the Trump campaign,” Nunes told Fox News on December 8.
PoliZette White House writer Jim Stinson can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
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