It all adds up to a Congress left in the political dark on a sensitive issue with potentially grave national-security implications — not to mention effects on a future Trump White House bid. Still, some are urging patience.
“As I’ve said to my Republican friends, let’s let the process go through,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.), who raised his hand to form a “zero” when asked how much information his panel has received about DOJ’s probe thus far. “I can’t cherry-pick [different] parts of the legal system.”
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), a former FBI special agent with a record of occasionally crossing Trump, offered his own gut check on the gulf between lawmakers’ oversight goals and the hard road to uncovering relevant details.
“The reality is this: Nobody — nobody in the press, nobody in Congress — knows the answer to the question ‘Was it justified or not?’” Fitzpatrick said of the Mar-a-Lago search. “We don’t know. We don’t have enough information.”
Congress faces some clear hurdles in trying to elbow its way into the Trump-related investigations currently underway: sometimes the agencies it’s seeking information from can’t sufficiently answer Hill requests. And, indeed, so far, congressional inquiries since the FBI’s Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago have achieved just one victory: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence began a formal review of potential damages to national security stemming from Trump’s mishandling of classified documents at his residence.
But that assessment is already on hold.
Intelligence officials have paused their work, citing a federal judge’s recent ruling in favor of Trump’s request for an independent arbiter known as a special master to review the seized materials for potentially privileged documents.
That same delay is also affecting briefings for the upper rung of congressional and Intelligence Committee leaders often shorthanded as the Gang of 8 — even though that decision seemed to contradict the Justice Department’s position in a recent court filing.
Prosecutors told Judge Aileen Cannon last week that they did not interpret her decision on appointing a special master as barring officials from briefing lawmakers “with intelligence oversight responsibilities regarding the classified records that were recovered” at Trump’s Florida home.
“We have access to all of the most sensitive intelligence … irrespective of any court case or a pending issue. So I just don’t understand why they’d be hiding behind that,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the Intelligence Committee’s vice chair. (Rubio signed onto a Warner-led request for the director of national intelligence’s review, in addition to full access to the seized documents.)
In the meantime, Warner called on Cannon to “give some clarifications as quickly as possible,” citing the urgent need for a formal briefing. He also vowed to maintain the bipartisan nature of his panel’s request for information, something that other congressional committees can’t boast.
That hasn’t stopped other panels from jumping into the Trump oversight fray, exploring everything from the former president’s handling of records to the allegations of politicization at DOJ that have been featured in the Jan. 6 select committee’s public hearings. The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday asked the National Archives and Records Administration to determine whether other presidential records from Trump’s tenure remain unaccounted for.
Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who recently lost her primary bid, noted in writing that Archives officials have indicated to her committee that the agency was “not certain whether all presidential records are in its custody.”
Yet the Archives has already told lawmakers that it’s separated itself from the ongoing DOJ investigation, which is looking into potential violations of the…
Read More: Congress wants in on Trump oversight. It may get stiff-armed.