House Oversight Committee Chair Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) says he’s ready to subpoena a memo reportedly written by former FBI Director James Comey that, according to multiple sources, details a meeting with President Donald Trump in which the president asked Comey to end the bureau’s investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Some Democrats have accused the president of obstructing justice by impeding the investigation into Flynn, who was fired earlier this year over his conversations with Russian officials prior to Trump’s inauguration.
Chaffetz, who announced last month he is not running for re-election, said he was drafting the subpoena in an interview with NBC News on Tuesday.
“If the memo exists, I need to see it and I need to see it right away. We are drafting the necessary paperwork to get the memo, so we will find out in a hurry if it’s there,” he said.
“I do have the ability to unilaterally issue a subpoena if need be ― hopefully, if this memo exists, they will turn it over voluntarily and swiftly, but we are writing a request as we speak.”
In a letter published later Tuesday, Chaffetz asked acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe to provide “no later than May 24, 2017, all memoranda, notes, summaries and recordings referring or relating to any communications between Comey and the President.”
Other Republicans ― who are expected to run for re-election ― did not express the same level of interest in the memo. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee who also has subpoena power, for example, urged The New York Times to release the memo. The Times reported that it did not obtain a copy of the memo but that Comey’s associates read parts of it to one of its reporters.
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