The Justice Department missed a deadline set by the House Judiciary Committee to produce documents related to then-FBI Director James Comey’s decision not to press charges against Hillary Clinton. | AP Photo DOJ to appoint U.S. attorney to oversee release of Clinton documents

The Justice Department has appointed a U.S. attorney to oversee the release of documents related to the FBI’s 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton amid Republican complaints — including from President Donald Trump — that the DOJ is slow-walking their release.

Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said Monday that U.S. Attorney John Lausch will direct the Justice Department’s process of combing through, redacting and releasing thousands of documents sought by lawmakers. She said Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray selected Lausch because as a U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, he is “outside of D.C. and independent of the FBI hierarchy.”


"Mr. Lausch, who has experience in the department and in private practice, will ensure that production moves at an acceptable pace and that any redactions are necessary and consistent under the relevant laws and regulations," Flores said.

But the move is already drawing frustration and confusion from top Republicans in Congress. Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said the Lausch announcement raises questions about what the Justice Department was doing up to this point to respond to Congress' demands.

"Congress requested these documents months ago. Congress has consistently been assured the production was in progress. How is injecting someone new into an ongoing review and production process calculated to expedite the process?" Gowdy said in a statement.

"Congress is not a [Freedom of Information Act] applicant to be given the least amount of material possible, material that is so heavily redacted, it is essentially meaningless," he added. "I urge the Department of Justice to produce all relevant and responsive documents to Congress, without redactions, immediately."

One top Trump ally, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, says the Lausch appointment flouts the urgency expressed by GOP lawmakers and appears to be an attempt to distance Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein from their role in the process.

"The move to put a U.S. attorney in charge of documents production certainly is welcomed but it is a small gesture that is a little too late," Meadows wrote in an email. "This outsourcing of the decision making will NOT distance the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General from the legitimate criticism that they are obstructing our oversight responsibilities."

"Patience ran out last week after a fourth appeal to expedite the process was met with a yawn," he added.

Another Trump ally, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), said the Lausch appointment fell short. He pointed to a string of actions by DOJ and the FBI in recent weeks: FBI Director Christopher Wray announced a plan to double to 54 the number of staff working on producing Clinton-related records for Congress; the inspector general announced a plan to probe the FBI’s handling of a sensitive spy program some Republicans have said was abused to surveil a former Trump campaign aide; Sessions revealed he had enlisted U.S. attorney John Huber to assist the inspector general; and now the Lausch appointment.

All of those actions, Jordan said, are “totally inadequate.”

“While they may look good on the surface, they don’t address the problem if you still give us the same old blacked out pieces of paper,” Jordan said in a phone interview.

Rather, Jordan reiterated a months-long call for Sessions to appoint a special counsel to probe the FBI’s actions in 2016, one Sessions has resisted and that top DOJ officials have dismissed.

Meadows, who often speaks with Trump, spent the weekend criticizing the Justice Department's process, taking to Twitter to vent frustration. Trump, too, made a rare foray into the congressional committee process, blasting his own Justice Department and FBI for missing a Thursday subpoena deadline set by the House Judiciary Committee.

"What does the Department of Justice and FBI have to hide? Why aren’t they giving the strongly requested documents (unredacted) to the HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE?" he tweeted Saturday. "Stalling, but for what reason? Not looking good!"

What does the Department of Justice and FBI have to hide? Why aren’t they giving the strongly requested documents (unredacted) to the HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE? Stalling, but for what reason? Not looking good! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2018

The committee has for months sought thousands of documents related to the FBI's handling of its 2016 investigation of Clinton's use of a private email server. Many of those documents have been compiled by the Justice Department's inspector general, who's expected to release a comprehensive report on FBI decision-making in the investigation in the next few weeks. But only a few thousand of an estimated 1.2 million records have been provided to the committee, GOP lawmakers say, and many have been heavily redacted.

Trump allies have blasted the bureau and former Director James Comey — fired by Trump last year — for declining to charge Clinton in the investigation. Comey is preparing to launch a national book tour next week in which he's expected to provide details about his interactions with Trump.

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The Justice Department insisted Monday that the department was being painstaking in its document release process because the law requires it to keep secret classified information, personal information and information related to grand juries. Lawmakers are in a position to complain about redactions, Flores said, only because the department has made the unredacted versions available to many of them in secure settings.

“It's really important that we have to get these redactions right. And, unfortunately, that just takes time,” Flores said in an interview on Fox News. “This morning we’re turning over another 3,600 pages. And hopefully that will help members of Congress see that we are absolutely moving through this process, not slow-walking it, and want very much to work with them so that they can have their oversight role.”

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has also turned up pressure on the FBI, demanding that by Wednesday the agency turn over the document it used to launch the 2016 investigation of Trump campaign contacts with Russia. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) argued that lawmakers should see an unredacted version of the document, which describes how Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that Russia had obtained dirt on Clinton.

Though DOJ has removed some redactions from the document, others pertaining to the identity of a foreign country have been kept, according to a source with knowledge of the document.