House to vote on measure demanding Justice turn over documents

The House will vote Thursday on a resolution demanding that the Department of Justice and FBI hand over sensitive documents sought by congressional Republicans, according to a GOP aide.

The floor vote represents the latest escalation in an ongoing feud between top law enforcement officials and House Republicans.

{mosads}On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee agreed to advance the resolution, which calls on the Justice Department to turn over all of the documents House Republicans have requested related to the FBI’s handling of investigations during the 2016 presidential election.

House Republicans view the resolution, which is not enforceable, as one final warning shot to the law enforcement agency before lawmakers move to impeach or hold senior officials in contempt of Congress.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) gave the Justice Department until last Friday to comply with a subpoena request for documents, telling senior officials that the House would take action if progress was not made.

GOP leadership said over the weekend that the agency has been making reasonable progress in turning over thousands of documents in response to congressional requests.  

But the authors of the resolution — House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), also a member of the Freedom Caucus — are unsatisfied with the pace of progress and have criticized the FBI for slow-walking their request.

Conservatives are fighting for access to information from the agency on court-approved counterintelligence surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page and the use of a confidential informant in the early days of the Russia investigation, among other things.

Ryan on Tuesday morning did not take contempt off of the table, but told reporters that he expects all of the requests to be honored “very, very soon.”

“We do expect full compliance very, very soon, and if we do not get that then we will keep every single option available to us,” he said.

The House Rules Committee will meet Wednesday afternoon to prep the resolution for floor debate.

Katie Bo Williams contributed