The chairman of the House Oversight Committee demanded late Tuesday that the FBI turn over all documents relating to communications between former FBI Director James Comey and President Trump — after warning that he has his “subpoena pen ready.”
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) wrote to acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe in the wake of a New York Times report on parts of a memo by Comey claiming that Trump asked him to end the investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Trump allegedly told Comey, according to the memo. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
“I agree he is a good guy,” Comey reportedly responded.
In a curious development, the unclassified memo was not even seen by the Times, which instead relied on an associate of Comey reading out parts of the memo to a Times reporter over the telephone.
The White House has denied the account of the conversation.
“This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey,” aides said Tuesday afternoon, adding that Trump never asked Comey to shut down the investigation.
In his letter to McCabe, Chaffetz says that the memo raises questions “as to whether the President attempted to influence or impede the FBI’s investigation as it relates to Lt. Gen. Flynn.”
He then requests the FBI provide by May 24, “all memoranda, notes, summaries, and recordings referring to or relating to any communications between Comey and the President.”
In a tweet before the letter became public, Chaffetz promised that the committee will get the memo, “if it exists” and warned: “I have my subpoena pen ready.”
.@GOPoversight is going to get the Comey memo, if it exists. I need to see it sooner rather than later. I have my subpoena pen ready.
— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) May 16, 2017
The House Oversight Committee did not immediately respond to a question from Breitbart News asking why only those Comey documents relating to Trump are being sought.
While the Times report triggered a firestorm among the media and on Capitol Hill, some Republicans have expressed skepticism over the claims made, with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) questioning the memo’s existence.
“I actually believe the director might have told us that there’d been a request like that and it was never mentioned by him,” Burr said, according to The Washington Examiner. “So somebody’s going to have to do more than have anonymous sources on this one for me to believe that there’s something there.
Adam Shaw is a political reporter for Breitbart News. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY
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