By Katie Bo Williams - 09/12/16 06:16 PM EDT
The
House Oversight Committee on Monday night issued a subpoena to the FBI
for more documents related to the agency’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
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“Will the FBI
provide to Congress the full file with no redactions of
personally-identifiable information?” Chaffetz asked Jason Herring, the
FBI's acting assistant director for congressional affairs, during a late
afternoon hearing on the documents.
“I can’t make that commitment,” Herring replied.
“Then
I’m going to issue a subpoena and I’m going to do it right now,”
Chaffetz said, pulling out the document. "We want all the 302s and we
would like the full file. You are hereby served.”
Chaffetz, Rep. Trey Gowdy
(R-S.C.) and others repeatedly pressed Herring on the justification for
blacking out some personally-identifiable information in the
unclassified copy of the FBI's report that was provided to Congress.
According
to Herring, the decision was made at the highest level of the bureau
and took into account whether the person in question was already in the
public eye.
“Can you cite any legal case, any precedent
that says that Congress cannot look at personally-identifiable
information?" Chaffetz asked.
Herring said he could not,
but argued that exposing individuals unnecessarily could have a
chilling effect on public cooperation with future investigations.
“Where
I have a problem is when [the FBI] redact[s] information that is not
deemed classified. It makes no sense. I believe that Congress should be
able to see that,” Chaffetz insisted.
"While I
understand there is an argument to withhold information under the
Privacy Act or the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), neither of those
apply to Congress or any other committees.”
Republicans
also pushed Herring on the unreleased 302s, believed to be the
interviews with key Clinton aides. According to Herring, the remaining
summaries are “working their way through the FOIA process.”
Democrats
repeatedly pushed back on the questioning as an attack on Clinton’s
presidential campaign, arguing that the session should have been
conducted behind closed doors in order to “responsibly” review what
should and should not have been redacted.
“I guess this is what
happens when you try to schedule a public attack against Hillary Clinton
for every day of the week — you get frantic, and you swap substantive
discussions for set-up hearings and cheap press hits,” Ranking Member
Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said in his opening statement.
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