Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee will not get their hands on information related to the search warrant the FBI used to raid the Mar-a-Lago home of former President Donald Trump last year.
That’s because the Department of Justice this week rejected the request for that information that was sent to them from Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, the chair of the Judiciary Committee.
Jordan wanted to gain access to some information related to the classified documents that FBI agents found when they conducted the search last August. His request was that information be provided to the committee regarding certain files as well as communications that took place between the Secret Service and the FBI Washington Field Office in advance of the raid taking place.
Much of the request that Jordan issued was rebuffed by the DOJ, though. The said that they weren’t able to share “non-public information about an ongoing criminal investigation and prosecution by a Special Counsel.”
In a letter sent to Jordan regarding the matter recently, Carlos Uriarte, the assistant attorney general, wrote:
“Protecting the confidentiality of non-public information regarding investigations and prosecutions preserves the American people’s confidence in the evenhanded administration of justice by guarding against the appearance of political pressure or other improper attempts to influence Department decisions.”
Jordan also wanted to gain access to information about the personnel that was assigned to the classified documents case, so that he and the other members of the Judiciary Committee could better understand the full scope of the search that took place at Mar-a-Lago in August of 2022.
The DOJ only gave him limited information about the investigation that special counsel Jack Smith is conducting into Trump. They told Jordan that “approximately 26 Special Agents” worked “either full or part-time … in some capacity” on the case through this past March.
The DOJ then simply outlined what were the official orders that appointed both Smith and Robert Hur as the people leading the investigation into all of the classified documents that were also found at the personal residence of President Joe Biden as well as an office building that he once occupied.
Jordan made his request after the Durham Report was released. That report included a full examination of the investigation the FBI conducted into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, and how they may have been connected to Trump’s campaign.
Ultimately, that report came to the conclusion that the FBI’s investigation was inherently flawed. It found that there wasn’t any proper basis for the investigation to be conducted at all in the first place.
The report also stated that Democrat Hillary Clinton – who was Trump’s opponent in the 2016 presidential election – played a big role in pushing claims of collusion between Russia and Trump to both the FBI and the media.
At this point, Jordan hasn’t commented on the response that the DOJ issued him about his request for information. It’s also not clear at this point whether this will end his push to receive that information, or if he’ll continue his fight for it.
