Yesterday, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) released the following statement in response to Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte’s (R-VA) request for a second special counsel to investigate “decisions made and not made by the Department of Justice and the FBI in 2016 and 2017”:

“The Nunes memo has now been thoroughly discredited.  Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation continues to line up cooperating witnesses and guilty pleas.  President Trump’s attacks on the Attorney General and the FBI are increasingly erratic.  I can understand why House Republicans hope that DOJ will swoop in and save them from this mess—but that is not what the Department of Justice is for.

“The Department brought in Special Counsel Mueller to oversee an existing criminal investigation predicated on serious allegations of wrongdoing—namely, the many established links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. 

“In contrast, House Republicans have failed to substantiate their allegations of “FISA abuse” at every turn.  In some cases, those allegations have been made in direct coordination with the White House.  These are blatant attempts to distract from and undermine the credibility of Special Counsel Mueller.  Chairman Goodlatte and Chairman Gowdy are simply off base—just as they were last year, when they called for a new special counsel to investigate a slew of Hillary Clinton conspiracy theories.  Where there is no crime, there is no criminal investigation for a second special counsel to manage.”

Background:

On January 23, 2018, after reviewing the “Nunes memo,” House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler immediately wrote to Chairman Bob Goodlatte to express his concerns. 

On February 4, 2018, Ranking Member Nadler sent a legal analysis of the “Nunes memo” to his Democratic colleagues.

The House Committee on the Judiciary has not yet held a single hearing to address President Trump’s overt attacks on the leadership of the Department of Justice and the Special Counsel.  Judiciary Republicans have also taken no action to address the ongoing threat Russia poses to the U.S. federal election system—despite pledging to do so when adopting the Committee’s oversight plan.

On February 8, 2018, all Democratic Members of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Chairman Goodlatte calling for immediate hearings to examine U.S. election infrastructure, foreign threats posed, and what steps the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and the State Department may or may not be taking to ensure the integrity of future state and federal elections.

The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that not only did the Russians attempt to hack at least 21 states, but they were successful in actually penetrating some of those systems. CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson both admitted the Russians never ceased their cyber operations from 2016 and will continue their attacks during the 2018 mid-term elections.  

###