Senior House Democrats are demanding the Justice Department to investigate anonymous leaks coming out of the FBI less than a week before Election Day.
The top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, Reps. John Conyers (Mich.) and Elijah Cummings (Md.), cited comments from Donald Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani and a debunked Fox News report.
“It is absolutely unacceptable for the FBI to leak unsubstantiated -and in some cases false – information about one presidential candidate to benefit the other candidate. Leaking this information to former FBI officials as a conduit to the Trump campaign is equally intolerable,” Conyers and Cummings wrote in a Friday letter to Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz.
{mosads}A week ago, FBI Director James Comey issued a cryptic letter to House GOP committee chairmen stating that the agency had learned of emails that “appear to be pertinent to the investigation,” though the FBI “cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant.”
Comey has not issued any other public statements since last Friday. Subsequent news reports over the last week have largely relied on sourcing from anonymous national security officials.
Giuliani told Fox News on Oct. 26 that Trump had “a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next two days.”
During a Fox and Friends interview Friday morning, Giuliani suggested he had advance knowledge of the FBI investigating emails possibly related to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server. He said that former FBI agents had told him about dissension within their ranks about investigating Clinton.
“I did nothing to get it out, I had no role in out,” Giuliani said, before adding: “Did I hear about it? You’re darn right I heard about it, and I can’t even repeat the language that I heard from the former FBI agents.”
Giuliani clarified in a CNN interview that he hasn’t spoken to any “current” FBI agents.
Also on Friday, Fox News host Bret Baier apologized for reporting on-air that there would “likely” be an FBI indictment against the Clinton Foundation for alleged pay-to-play schemes. His report, which had been based on unnamed officials, was debunked by other news outlets.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier in the week on divisions among FBI agents over pursuing a case against the Clinton Foundation.
“For these reasons, we are calling on your office to conduct a thorough investigation to identify the sources of these and other leaks from the FBI and to recommend appropriate action,” the lawmakers wrote.