Comey, Lynch To Receive Subpoenas From House GOP

The GOP-led House Judiciary committee will issue subpoenas to former FBI Director James Comey and former Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch, according to Bloomberg and CNN's Manu Raju.

The subpoenas will reportedly be issued on November 29 and December 5, while the GOP says they would prefer them to meet in private but are open to public testimony.

News of the subpoenaes rattled ranking Democrat Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who is expected to chair the panel next year.

"These subpoenas are coming out of the blue, with very little time left on the calendar," Nadler said in a statement, noting that Lynch and Comey had indicated "months ago" that they were willing to answer questions voluntarily.

Comey and Lynch were under threat of subpoena earlier this year by Sen. Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee (R-IA), only to be blocked by the panel's top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California.

In June, the Department of Justice's internal watchdog, the Inspector General, found that Comey defied authority several times while he was director of the FBI, including using personal email (Gmail) for official business.

The former FBI Director has also come under fire for mishandling classified information when he leaked an internal memo to the press documenting what he felt was President Trump obstructing the FBI's probe into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn - which was conducted by the FBI under dubious circumstances, and for which evidence may have been tampered with. Comey's memo was a key component in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's decision to launch a special counsel investigation headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller.

In addition, Comey was head of the FBI during a multi-agency counterintelligence operation against the Trump campagin in which campaign aides were spied on and misled by FBI/DOJ agents.

Loretta Lynch, on the other hand, was dinged in the IG report over an "ambiguous" incomplete recusal from the Clinton email "matter" despite a clandestine 30-minute "tarmac" meeting with Bill Clinton one week beforethe FBI exonerated Hillary Clinton.

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