WASHINGTON _ Justice Department officials say they've gone to great lengths to comply with demands by House Republicans for documents about sensitive investigations, even as some lawmakers threaten impeachment proceedings against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein over the issue.
The department has fully complied with two subpoenas from the House Intelligence Committee and met almost all demands in a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee, according to officials who spoke to reporters Wednesday on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing document production to Congress.
The House Republicans are demanding documents related to the continuing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign as well as the FBI's probe into Democrat Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. They say both probes were tainted by animosity toward Republican Donald Trump, who frequently invokes that argument in tweets about what he calls a "witch hunt."
The officials said the only document the department won't make available to lawmakers is an unredacted version of a memorandum from Rosenstein to special counsel Robert Mueller authorizing specific activities once he took over the investigation of Russia meddling and whether President Trump or any of his associates colluded with Russia.
Some parts of other documents won't be provided to lawmakers if they have information that can be withheld under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, such as material related to grand jury proceedings and foreign governments, the officials said.
Just to meet the congressional demands, the department has built two reading rooms, and the FBI has written new software code to search its top-secret system, the officials said.
Over the weekend, the department released heavily redacted warrant applications and court documents related to surveillance of Carter Page, a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.
The department has made documents related to the Page surveillance warrant available to lawmakers for review with few redactions. So far, some 30 lawmakers have seen them, the officials said.
House conservatives led by Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, Judiciary Committee member Jim Jordan and Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, have accused Rosenstein and his team of withholding documents, hiding text messages, engaging in potential federal warrant abuse and defying congressional subpoenas.
They were considering procedural options as of Wednesday that could lay the groundwork for impeachment or other punitive actions against Rosenstein. But any immediate moves would be largely symbolic, with the House preparing for a five-week recess.
The biggest unmet demand is providing lawmakers access to unredacted documents related to the Clinton investigation, which falls under the House Judiciary subpoena, the officials said. Attorney General Jeff Sessions put a U.S. attorney, John Lausch, in charge of providing Congress with the documents.
Lausch has identified 880,000 pages of documents relevant to that subpoena and is working with lawmakers to provide access, the officials said.
The department also found _ and is now reviewing _ 130,000 text messages on the phones of two FBI officials who were sharply critical of Trump, the officials said. Most of the texts are copies of ones that have already been reviewed or made public, and were included in a report from the Justice Department's inspector general about the Clinton investigation, the officials said.
Trump and his allies seized on the texts from the two officials _ Peter Strzok and Lisa Page _ to claim the Trump-Russia investigation was politically tainted from the start. Strzok is facing disciplinary proceedings, and Page has left the FBI.
