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Judiciary Democrats To Call for Release of Information on White House & DOJ Communication

March 6, 2017

Tomorrow, House Judiciary Committee Democrats will send a letter to White House Counsel Donald McGahn, asking him to provide information about contacts between the White House and the Department of Justice. Judiciary Democrats will also send a similar letter to FBI Director James Comey.

Current signers include: Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), David N. Cicilline (D-RI), Cedric Richmond (D-LA), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Eric Swalwell (D-CA), and Jamie Raskin (D-MD).

Full text of the letter is below and attached. The text of the letter is for immediate release.

A signed copy of the letter along with a complete list of Members who signed on, will be released tomorrow.

Donald F. McGahn II
White House Counsel
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. McGahn:

We write to express our concern regarding reports of improper contacts between your office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, concerning the FBI's ongoing review of efforts by the Russian government to unlawfully influence the U.S. presidential election in favor of Mr. Trump.

Early Saturday morning, President Trump took to Twitter to claim that "President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to [the] Election!" He went on to ask: "How low has President Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"

No substantiation was offered for this accusation. Many believe it is based on charges raised by conservative radio host Mark Levin on Thursday evening, which were repeated in turn by Breitbart on Friday.[1] According to the New York Times:

[A] senior White House official said that Donald F. McGahn II, the president's chief counsel, was working on Saturday to secure access to what Mr. McGahn believed was an order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing some form of surveillance related to Mr. Trump and his associates.

The official offered no evidence to support the notion that such an order exists.[2]

In our experience, it is highly unusual for the White House to seek access to a government application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In almost any circumstance, it would be inappropriate to ask for that information if the President and his associates are related to the underlying investigation.

Perhaps more troubling, this reported contact between your office and law enforcement officials comes on top of several other reports of similar contacts between the White House and both the Department of Justice and the FBI. For example, according to CNN, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus asked FBI Director James Comey and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to "publicly knock down media reports about communications between Donald Trump's associates and Russians known to US intelligence during the 2016 presidential campaign."[3] Director Comey refused to do so—but reportedly agreed to let Mr. Priebus cite "senior intelligence officials" as part of his pushback, which Mr. Preibus did on national TV that weekend.

If these reports are accurate, then these communications are both inappropriate and in violation of Department of Justice guidance. Since the Carter Administration, the Department has had guidelines in place to limit communications between the White House and career investigators and prosecutors, "to insure, to the extent possible, that improper considerations will not enter into our legal judgments."[4] The standing policy, issued in 2009, states: "The Justice Department will advise the White House concerning any pending or contemplated criminal or civil investigations on cases when, but only when, it is important for the performance of the President's duties and appropriate from a law enforcement perspective."[5] The sitting Attorney General is, of course, free to revise or replace this guidance—but Attorney General Sessions has not done so.

The independence of the Department of Justice and the FBI is a particular concern when individuals associated with both the Administration and the President's campaign may be the targets of the investigation. As former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich stated, "it's quite inappropriate for anyone from the White House to have contact with the FBI about a pending criminal investigation, that has been an established rule down the road, probably since Watergate."[6]

Accordingly, we request that you provide us with a description of any and all contacts or other communications (including phone contacts, emails, texts, voicemails, notes or other forms of contact, whether written, oral, or otherwise) between anyone employed by or associated with the White House and any official or representative of the FBI or the Department of Justice, relating to any investigation into Russian interference in the recent presidential election and any related matter. Please provide this information to us no later than March 24, 2017.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.


[1] Joel B. Pollack, Mark Levin to Congress: Investigate Obama's "Silent Coup" Vs. Trump, Breitbart, Mar. 3, 2017.

[2] Michael D. Shear and Michael S. Schmidt, Trump Offering No Evidence, Says Obama Tapped His Phones, N.Y. Times, Mar. 4, 2017.

[3] Jim Sciutto et al., FBI refused White House request to knock down recent Trump-Russia stories, CNN, Feb. 24, 2017.

[4] Remarks by the Hon. Griffin B. Bell, Attorney General of the United States, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Sept. 6, 1978.

[5] Memorandum from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Communications with the White House and Congress, U.S. Dept. of Justice, May 11, 2009.

[6] Adam Serwer, When Does Contact between the FBI and the White House Cross the Line, Atlantic, Feb. 24, 2017.