WASHINGTON -- House Democrats are asking the Justice Department's inspector general to launch a special investigation into Attorney General Jeff Sessions and whether he violated the terms of his recusal from probes related to the 2016 presidential campaigns by being involved in the firing of James Comey as FBI director.
In a letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Thursday, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee asked the inspector general's office to investigate and determine "whether administrative disciplinary procedures" -- including and up to termination -- "are warranted."
Democratic lawmakers said they were prompted to write the letter by the Justice Department's silence after several earlier inquiries about Sessions' involvement in Comey's termination. Because Sessions recused himself from matters related to the Trump campaign and to the investigation into the hacking of the Hillary Clinton campaign's email, they argue that Sessions likely violated his recusal in the course of firing Comey, regardless of why Trump ordered Comey fired.
Their letter comes as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is making a renewed push to call the scruples of acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe into question.
In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein this week, Grassley listed a series of public complaints about McCabe, ranging from donations made to his wife's political campaign from close associates of Clinton, to an allegation of sex discrimination made against him. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn supported the FBI agent claiming the discrimination.
Grassley questioned why McCabe hadn't recused himself and "whether he had any retaliatory motive against Flynn for being an adverse witness to him in a pending proceeding."
The competing letters highlight the partisan divisions deepening in Congress as intelligence committee investigations and special counsel Robert Mueller III look into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.
The House and Senate intelligence committees are scheduling interviews with various surrogates of President Donald Trump, including his senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Also, the Senate Intelligence Committee is expecting copies of the memos that Comey kept of his conversations with the president that he said made him uncomfortable.
But as the intelligence committees have intensified their probes, other committees pursuing lines of inquiry against Russia have sometimes turned their attention in different directions.
In recent days, Grassley has redoubled efforts to look into how Comey handled the Clinton email server scandal, while new House Oversight and Government Relations Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said he did not plan to have his panel investigate allegations of Russian election meddling or collusion between the president's surrogates and the Kremlin.
Trump's nominee to take over as FBI director, Christopher Wray, was on Capitol Hill on Thursday, meeting with senators about his nomination.
A Section on 06/30/2017