Top Republican lawmakers will be allowed to review classified information pertaining to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, the White House said, after wrangling to get a hold of documents related to an FBI informant who reportedly spoke to Trump campaign officials.
Law enforcement and intelligence officials met with President Donald Trump on Monday and agreed to convene another meeting for the review.
“White House Chief of Staff Kelly will immediately set up a meeting with the FBI, DOJ, and DNI together with congressional leaders to review highly classified and other information they have requested,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
Monday’s meeting, which included Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, focused on congressional requests for documents pertaining specifically to the FBI source.
Trump demanded Sunday that the Department of Justice look into whether someone had infiltrated his campaign for political purposes ― and whether someone within the Obama administration had requested the spying. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said that the Justice Department would expand its inquiry to look into the matter.
GOP congressional leaders have been fighting for months to get their hands on documents related to the Russia probe to no avail, making it unclear as to why the Justice Department appeared to cave in this latest instance.
Rudy Giuliani, who leads Trump’s legal team, told HuffPost on Monday that the president wouldn’t agree to an interview with Mueller’s team without first learning more about the informant.
“We can’t let our guy go in and be questioned without knowing this,” Giuliani said. The decision to set up the meeting, Giuliani added, was made by Trump and his White House lawyers.
The Washington Post names the informant in question as Stefan Halper, a Cambridge University professor. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal do not name Halper, but report that the informant was sent to speak with several Trump campaign advisers who were found to have suspicious ties to Russia.