Chaffetz: ‘We Decide What’s Relevant, Not the Justice Department’

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held an open hearing Tuesday to question the IT technicians who worked on Hillary Clinton’s private email server, but on Monday, it questioned Obama Administration officials about the presence of classified material on the server during her tenure as secretary of state.

In the process, committee chairman U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) delivered a subpoena to FBI acting assistant director for congressional affairs Jason Herring. The subpoena covered the entire FBI investigative file, not just the documents the bureau has already provided.

Chaffetz and other Republicans on the panel said the bureau has withheld summaries of interviews with witnesses and unnecessarily blacked out material from documents sent last month. They are growing frustrated with the “stonewalling” they are getting from both the FBI and key witnesses in the case.

“We decide what’s relevant—not the Department of Justice, not the FBI,” Chaffetz said. “We are entitled to the full file.”

Herring and six other Obama administration officials appeared before the committee to answer congressional questions about the investigative files and what is in them. On several occasions, the lawmakers were told the answers couldn’t be given in an open forum due to their highly classified nature, resulting in the remainder of the session being held in secret.

“It’s unclear to me how the FBI can prevent a member of Congress from seeing what we’re already allowed to see by law, yet here they have done so,” Chaffetz said.

Democrats have accused the chairman of using the committee’s authority and resources to “engage in an astonishing onslaught of political attacks” against Clinton. Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) dismissed the “emergency” nature of the meeting.

“As far as I can tell, the only ’emergency’ is that the election is less than two months away,” he said.