I am becoming discouraged about the possibility of anyone cleaning up Washington. We have a new President, but there are so many career establishment people there, cleaning up the city is definitely a slog.
On Sunday The Washington Examiner posted an article that reinforces my concern. Judicial Watch is a watchdog organization that closely watches administrations of both parties and uses Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to hold them accountable.
The article at The Washington Examiner reports:
It has now been more than a month since a House Intelligence Committee subpoena set a September 1 deadline for the FBI and the Justice Department to turn over documents related to the Trump dossier.
Not a single document has been produced. The first deadline was extended once, then again, then again, and is now on some sort of hold. But no documents have been handed over.
…Just as they have been doing with the House intelligence panel, the FBI and Justice Department tried to blow off Grassley, saying any talks with Rybicki and Ghattas might interfere with the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller. Then, after Grassley threatened to subpoena the two officials, the Justice Department wrote back to Grassley on September 22 to say, “Upon further evaluation, we believe that it is appropriate to make Mr. Ghattas and Mr. Rybicki available to the committee for interviews.”
But Justice still had conditions, particularly where the Mueller investigation was concerned. So in a letter last week, Grassley reminded them that, “contrary to the implication [from the Justice Department], the committee had, in fact notified and consulted with special counsel Mueller’s office for deconfliction purposes about interviewing these two witnesses. Specifically, the committee provided ample opportunity for that office to voice any objection, and accommodated that office’s concern…” In other words, Grassley said, Mueller’s office did not voice any concern about the committee’s request.
Of course, Grassley is so far just threatening a subpoena. The House committee had already issued one. And in both cases, the FBI and Justice Department have not produced either the dossier documents or the two FBI officials (who are thought to know quite a bit about the dossier).
Who is hiding what? Since this dossier was the basis of the wiretapping of people close to Donald Trump when he was running for president, the content and the history of the dossier are important in determining whether or not those wiretaps were illegally done by the Obama Administration.