House Republicans Return to Capitol Hill A Week Early to Grill DOJ, FBI Officials

Some House Republicans are coming back to Washington a week early to conduct closed-door interviews with three current and former senior officials at the Justice Department and FBI this week, starting Tuesday morning with former associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr, GOP have sources confirmed.

The interviews are part of the Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees’ joint probe into potential abuses of power and misdeeds within the DOJ over the course of its investigations into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and possible ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

The president has embarked on a crusade to crush Ohr’s credibility in recent days, calling the longtime FBI official and his wife a “disgrace.”

Members of the House GOP have accused top DOJ officials of misleading Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act judges on applications for warrants to monitor the foreign contacts of Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Page was no longer with the campaign by the time the FBI began listening to his conversations with foreign nationals.

Republicans have accused Ohr of working with former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele to get the now-infamous dossier on Trump’s ties to Russia.

Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for Fusion GPS, the consulting firm Democrats hired to conduct opposition research on Trump. Fusion GPS enlisted Steele due to his extensive contacts as a retired intelligence agent.

The FBI ended its relationship with Steele after he leaked his dossier to BuzzFeed News.

But House Republicans have claimed they have evidence that Ohr and Steele continued discussing the dossier long after the official relationship ended.

“When he comes to Congress tomorrow, Bruce Ohr has explaining to do,” tweeted Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who will attend the Tuesday meeting.