House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy told "Fox News Sunday" that House Speaker Paul Ryan led a meeting Friday night with senior members of the DOJ and FBI, and made it clear that “there’s going to be action on the floor of the House this week if FBI and DOJ do not comply with our subpoena request.” The House Judiciary Committee has requested more than a million documents from the FBI and DOJ relating to the Hillary Clinton email probe, the firing of former top FBI official Andrew McCabe, and reported surveillance of a Trump aide during the 2016 presidential election.
But Republicans have accused the DOJ and FBI of stonewalling and intentionally impeding their investigation, despite the agencies' claims that fulfilling the request requires a careful review of the sensitive documents.
Gowdy, R-S.C., said the GOP's action could involve "the full panoply of constitutional weapons available to the people’s house."
"Under the heading of minor miracles, you had members of the House working on a Friday night," Gowdy said. "Paul Ryan led this meeting. You had [House Intelligence Committee Chair] Devin Nunes, [House Judiciary Committee Chair] Bob Goodlatte, myself and everyone you can think of from the FBI and the DOJ, and we went item by item on both of those outstanding subpoenas.
And Paul made it very clear; there’s going to be action on the floor of the House this week if the FBI and DOJ do not comply with our subpoena request," he continued. "So [Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein, [FBI Director] Chris Wray you were in the meeting, you understood him just as clearly as I did. We’re going to get compliance or the House of Representatives is going to use its full arsenal of constitutional weapons to gain compliance."
Last week, emails reviewed by Fox News showed that Rosenstein himself threatened to “subpoena” emails, phone records and other documents from lawmakers and staff on a Republican-led House committee during a tense meeting earlier this year, in what aides described as a "personal attack."
Gowdy told "Fox News Sunday" that "the full panoply of constitutional weapons available to the people’s house" are on the table, including contempt of Congress.
"I don’t want the drama; I want the documents," Gowdy added.
In a statement last week, Gowdy said he was "alarmed, angered, and deeply disappointed" at the revelations in the DOJ IG report released Thursday that analyzed federal investigators' conduct during the Hillary Clinton email probe.
The watchdog's report unearthed new texts from senior FBI officials who investigated both Clinton and the Trump campaign, including one in which the No. 2 investigator on the Clinton probe, Peter Strzok, vowed to "stop" Trump from becoming president.
Gowdy reiterated on "Fox News Sunday" that the IG report was deeply concerning.
"I don’t know what [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller has," he said. "I do know this: that bias is so pervasive and everyone who has ever stood in front of a jury and had to explain it in a way will tell you it is the most miserable feeling in the world and I’ve never seen this level of bias."
