The White House is rejecting a sweeping request from the House Judiciary Committee for documents, suggesting the panel is attempting a “do-over” of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe and calling on the committee to narrow its scope.
“It appears that the Committee’s inquiry is designed, not to further a legitimate legislative purpose, but rather to conduct a pseudo law enforcement investigation on matters that were already the subject of the Special Counsel’s long-running investigation and are outside the constitutional authority of the legislative branch,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone asserted in a 12-page letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday.
“The only purpose for this duplication seems to be harassing and seeking to embarrass political opponents after an exhaustive two-year investigation by the Department of Justice did not reach the conclusion that some members of the Committee apparently would have preferred. That, of course, is not a permissible purpose for demanding confidential information from the Executive,” Cipollone wrote.
