Senator Chuck Grassley.

Senator Chuck Grassley and other key members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are asking the FBI for memos its fired director reportedly wrote about White House meetings.

“We need to get the facts out in the open,” Grassley told Iowa reporters today. “We can’t just rely on selective leaks and reports.”

The group wants the White House to turn over its records, too, including any “tapes.”

Last Friday President Trump tweeted that fired FBI director James Comey should hope there are no “tapes” of his conversation with Trump about the agency’s investigation of Russian meddling in the U.S. election. Grassley and other top senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee today called on the White House to “provide records of interactions with Comey, including any audio recordings.”

“I think everybody agrees that this country is going to be better off when we get answers,” Grassley said.

The New York Times first reported Comey had written memos about his meetings with President Trump, including one that indicated Trump had asked Comey to table the Russia investigation.

“He reportedly did this in order to document what he thought might be improper behavior by the president regarding ongoing investigations at the FBI. This report leaves many questions unanswered,” Grassley said. “…It’s just common sense that we ought to be reading the whole memo.”

Grassley’s asking for “all memos” Comey may have written about “interactions” with superiors in the Trump and Obama Administrations about the Russia investigation as well as the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of email.

Grassley was elected to the U.S. House in 1974 and he said the controversies swirling in D.C. right now are “not near” the level of Watergate.

“I was just going into office when Nixon resigned,” Grassley said. “Nothing compared to the impeachment of Clinton.”

But Grassley said “some” of Trump’s woes are “self-inflicted,” but there’s “irony” in news stories about Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified information  involve someone leaking classified intelligence to reporters.

Copies of the letters from Grassley and the other senators are below.

The Honorable Andrew McCabe       
Acting Director                                                          
Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20535
Dear Acting Director McCabe:
           
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that former Director Comey created memos regarding his interactions with President Trump, “a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence an ongoing investigation.”  The article stated that “Mr. Comey created similar memos – including some that are classified – about every phone call and meeting he had with the president.”  More generally, the article stated “Mr. Comey was known among his closet advisers to document conversations that he believed would later be called into question.”  Presumably, this means that Mr. Comey created similar memoranda relating to other controversial conversations, whether with officials in the current administration or the prior one. 
 
We are writing to request that the FBI provide the Committee with all such memos, if they exist, that Mr. Comey created memorializing interactions he had with Presidents Trump and Obama, Attorneys General Sessions and Lynch, and Deputy Attorneys General Rosenstein, Boente, and Yates regarding the investigations of Trump associates’ alleged connections with Russia or the Clinton email investigation.  Please provide these documents by no later than May 24, 2017. 
 
We anticipate that some of these documents may be classified, some may not, and others may contain both classified and unclassified information.  Please deliver any documents containing classified information to the Office of Senate Security and provide all unclassified documents directly to the Committee.  If you have any specific requests with regard to the Committee’s handling of unclassified material, please raise those with us in advance.

Sincerely,
   
 
Charles E. Grassley                                         Dianne Feinstein
Chairman                                                        Ranking Member
Committee on the Judiciary                            Committee on the Judiciary
 
 
Lindsey Graham                                             Sheldon Whitehouse
Chairman                                                        Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism        Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism
Committee on the Judiciary                           Committee on the Judiciary
  
May 17, 2017

The Honorable Donald McGahn        
White House Counsel                                                 
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr.McGahn:
           
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that former FBI Director Comey memorialized the content of his phone calls and meetings with President Trump in a series of internal memoranda.  In particular, the article alleged that Mr. Comey had memorialized a conversation with the President in which the President made statements that have been interpreted as asking the FBI to clear Mr. Flynn of alleged wrongdoing.  The article noted that Mr. Comey was known among his closet advisers to document conversations that he believed would later be called into question.  Last week, the President tweeted a message implying that the White House may have audio recordings of interactions with Mr. Comey. 
    
The Judiciary Committee has already written to the FBI requesting all memos, if they exist, that Mr. Comey created memorializing interactions he had with Presidents Trump and Obama, Attorneys General Sessions and Lynch, and Deputy Attorneys General Rosenstein, Boente, and Yates regarding the investigations of Trump associates’ alleged connections with Russia or the Clinton email investigation.  In order for the Committee to fully assess these allegations, we are also asking that the White House please provide the Committee all White House records memorializing interactions with Mr. Comey relating to the FBI’s investigation of alleged ties between President Trump’s associates and Russia, or the Clinton email investigation, including all audio recordings, transcripts, notes, summaries, and memoranda.  To the extent the prior administration’s records of interactions with Mr. Comey about these topics may now be housed at the National Archives or elsewhere, we ask that you make the relevant personnel there aware of the request and authorize them to release the records to the Committee. 
 
Please provide the records by May 24, 2017.  Thank you for your prompt attention to this important matter.   
 
Sincerely,
 
 
Charles E. Grassley                                         Dianne Feinstein
Chairman                                                        Ranking Member
Committee on the Judiciary                           Committee on the Judiciary
 
 
Lindsey Graham                                              Sheldon Whitehouse
Chairman                                                        Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism        Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism
Committee on the Judiciary                           Committee on the Judiciary