WASHINGTON _ The Senate Judiciary Committee gave Chairman Lindsey Graham, a strong ally of President Donald Trump, sweeping subpoena authority to dig into the Russia investigation that began late in the Obama administration.
The committee voted 12-10 Thursday to let Graham demand information from numerous Obama-era officials, including former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and ex-FBI Director James Comey.
The politically charged investigation, and a parallel inquiry by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, are intended to wrap up shortly before the November election.
Graham, who is up for reelection in South Carolina, has resisted calling former President Barack Obama or former Vice President Joe Biden to testify. Yet after a sometimes heated debate in the committee over the past two weeks, Graham now has the authority to issue subpoenas to more than 50 people as part of his panel's review of the origins of the investigation into Russian election interference and any possible connection to the 2016 Trump campaign.
Officials in Trump's administration also are on the list, including Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray, who has been increasingly under fire from Trump's allies.
Graham defended his probe, saying the Russia investigation had gone "off the rails."
The committee isn't going "to sit on the sidelines," Graham said, saying he wants to get to the bottom of what happened early in the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant for Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.
"I am very intent in making sure this never happens again," Graham said.
The committee's top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, offered an amendment that would give Democrats broad subpoena power too.
"Otherwise you give total control to the majority," Feinstein said.
Republicans blocked her amendment on a partisan vote. The majority also blocked a series of requests from Democrats seeking to call people including Jared Kushner, Rudy Giuliani, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen.
Graham said Thursday he would call special counsel Robert Mueller or his designee if Democrats want to, and that he would work with Feinstein if there are other people Democrats seek to subpoena.
Republicans on Graham's committee earlier questioned former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein over his role in appointing Mueller and in approving a widely criticized FISA warrant extension against Page.
Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin won support from committee Republicans last week to subpoena a number of officials in his own investigation of the investigators. A week earlier, he gained partisan backing to subpoena a Ukrainian company in his fast-track investigation of Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden.
Democrats have dismissed the efforts as ill-timed fishing expeditions into Republican conspiracy theories floated by Trump. He has long complained that anti-Trump factions in the Justice Department and the Obama administration misused their authority to undermine him.
Democrats say the committees should focus on the coronavirus pandemic and police brutality instead.
"Instead of addressing the real challenges African Americans face, the Republican conspiracy caucus is obsessed with viciously attacking the FBI for protecting our national security while Putin interfered in our democracy," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Wednesday, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
