Judiciary chair may call for meeting with Mueller

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said on Wednesday that he might request a meeting with 2016 Russian election interference special counsel Robert Mueller if the FBI does not provide memos prepared by former Director James Comey.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has not yet heard back from the FBI on his panel’s request for the agency to provide the memos, and said that he and committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) may have to speak with Mueller about what documents they can obtain.

“We are still deciding what to do, but we both think very seriously you can’t let it drop,” Grassley told CNN.

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Last week, Grassley and Feinstein requested all memos related to Comey’s communications with top officials in both the Trump and Obama administrations. They also asked the White House to provide to the committee any records of President Trump’s interactions with Comey after the president suggested that he may have audio recordings of their conversations.

The lawmakers requested that the documents and records be turned over to the committee by Wednesday. The Judiciary Committee is among four congressional panels investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. 

Comey was abruptly fired by Trump earlier this month, sparking a flurry of backlash from Democrats and some Republicans, who questioned the president’s timing and motives. 

The New York Times reported last week that a memo prepared by Comey revealed that Trump had asked him in February to end the FBI’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who lost his job after giving false accounts of his interactions with Russian officials.

A day later, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller, a former FBI director, as special counsel to oversee the federal law enforcement probe into Russian election meddling and any coordination between Trump’s campaign and Moscow. Mueller was reportedly briefed at the FBI on Comey’s memos about his interactions with the president.