The Justice Department on Thursday gave lawmakers redacted versions of five memos kept by former FBI Director James Comey to document meetings with President Trump, a congressional source told Fox News.
The source told Fox News the memos were turned over to the House Judiciary, Oversight and Intelligence Committees following threats from Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., to subpoena Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for failing to meet the deadline to submit the documents.
In a statement to lawmakers, the Justice Department said it had redacted classified information in the memos, but would provide an unredacted version on Friday.
Goodlatte, House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., had set a Monday deadline for the Justice Department to turn over the Comey memos.
In a joint statement, the committee chairmen said the memos “are significant for both what is in them and what is not.
“Former Director Comey’s memos show the President made clear he wanted allegations of collusion, coordination, and conspiracy between his campaign and Russia fully investigated,” they said. “The memos also made clear the ‘cloud’ President Trump wanted lifted was not the Russian interference in the 2016 election cloud, rather it was the salacious, unsubstantiated allegations related to personal conduct leveled in the [Steele] dossier.
“The memos also show former Director Comey never wrote that he felt obstructed or threatened,” Goodlatte, Gowdy and Nunes went on. “While former Director Comey went to great lengths to set dining room scenes, discuss height requirements, describe the multiple times he felt complimented, and myriad other extraneous facts, he never once mentioned the most relevant fact of all, which was whether he felt obstructed in his investigation.”
In an interview with CNN earlier Thursday, Comey said it was “fine by me” if Congress and the public sees the memos.
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