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Republican congressman Devin Nunes 'has plan to impeach FBI boss Christopher Wray'

'We’re not messing around here', says politician who authored controversial memo accusing FBI of misconduct

Jon Sharman
Wednesday 11 April 2018 05:28 EDT
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Devin Nunes: 'We will have a plan to hold in contempt and to impeach Christopher Wray'

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A Republican congressman has threatened impeachment proceedings against the director of the FBI, as he seeks to step up a quest to obtain documents related to the Russia investigation.

Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, said he may move against Christopher Wray and Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, over what he said was a failure to disclose a two-page document providing a basis for special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into alleged Russian collusion with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

The California representative said he had been asking for the unredacted text of the memo to no avail, and also threatened to hold the two Justice Department (DOJ) officials in contempt of Congress.

He told conservative Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday: “We’re not going to just hold in contempt, we will have a plan to hold in contempt and to impeach.

“We’re not messing around here, they’re going to give us these two pages.”

After Ms Ingraham suggested critics might say he was merely acting as Mr Trump’s “lackey”, Mr Nunes added: ”Whenever I see evidence of Russian collusion, I’ll be the first person standing out there on the steps of the Capitol.

“I haven’t found it yet but I’ve found a whole lot of other stuff that always puts DOJ and FBI in a bad light, unfortunately.”

Mr Nunes was the author of a controversial memo, released earlier this year, that alleged misconduct by FBI officials in that agency’s investigation of purported Trump-Russia ties.

The Republican-only memo accused officials of abusing their power to get a secret court order to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

Democrats argued the document mischaracterised intelligence and tried to paint the FBI’s Russia investigation as biased. They also claimed it was an attempt to divert attention from Mr Mueller’s own probe, which has seen a number of high-profile arrests.

Mr Trump has denied there was any collusion between his campaign and the Kremlin, and has frequently characterised Mr Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt”.

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