According to Politico, a group of frustrated Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee led by Devin Nunes (R-CA) have been gathering in secret for several weeks to build a case against senior leaders of the Justice Department and the FBI for what they say is "improper" and perhaps criminal mishandling of the salacious and unproven 34-page Trump-Russia dossier, according to four sources familiar with their plans.
Devin Nunes (R-CA)
A subset of the Republican members of the House intelligence committee, led by Chairman Devin Nunes of California, has been quietly working parallel to the committee’s high-profile inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. […]
The people familiar with Nunes’ plans said the goal is to highlight what some committee Republicans see as corruption and conspiracy in the upper ranks of federal law enforcement. The group hopes to release a report early next year detailing their concerns about the DOJ and FBI, and they might seek congressional votes to declassify elements of their evidence. -Politico
When pressed for details, Reps Mike Conway (R-TX) and Peter King (R-NY) were mum, with Conway telling POLITICO, "I don't want talk about what we do behind closed doors."
Nunes' has gone on record several times to discuss his feelings over the government law enforcement, telling Fox News "I hate to use the word corrupt, but they've become at least so dirty that who's watching the watchmen? Who's investigating these people?" adding "There is no one."
House and Senate Republicans have joined countless voices, including President Trump's outside counsel, Jay Sekulow, to launch a second Special Counsel to investigate the FBI and Justice Department to find out what role the salacious dossier played in the Trump-Russia investigation, as well as a trove of anti-Trump text messages sent between lead FBI investigator Peter Strzok to his FBI attorney mistress Lisa Page while the two of them were working together on both the Clinton email investigation and the Trump-Russia investigation.
Republicans in the Nunes-led group suspect the FBI and DOJ have worked either to hurt Trump or aid his former campaign rival Hillary Clinton, a sense that has pervaded parts of the president’s inner circle. Trump has long called the investigations into whether Russia meddled in the 2016 election a “witch hunt,” and on Tuesday, his son Donald Trump Jr. told a crowd in Florida the probes were part of a “rigged system” by “people at the highest levels of government” who were working to hurt the president.
House Intel Committee member Jim Jordan (R-OH) told Fox News yesterday that they are now considering contempt of the FBI and DOJ leadership and subpoenas over anti-Trump bias:
I think they were putting together a plan to stop Donald Trump from being the next president of the United States. I think it’s amazing in spite of the fact that the Democrats were against him, the Republican establishment was against him, the mainstream press was against him. and now I believe the FBI and the Justice Department were against him, the American people still said that’s the guy we want to be the next president.
“I believe that fake dossier was used as the basis to get Warren to now what we learn about Peter Strzok and Bruce Ohr and the FBI and the Justice Department,” said Jordan, adding, “Everything points to the fact that there was an orchestrated plan to try to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the President of the United States.”
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Meanwhile, Trey Gowdy - who notably chose not to call on key witness Peter Strzok or demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr for testimony - is apparently not included in the group seeking to build a case. As POLITICO reports, "A congressional aide with knowledge of the meetings said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) was not among the participants. ”While he does believe the FBI and DOJ have recently made decisions worth looking into, he is and will always be a defender of the FBI, DOJ and the special counsel," the aide said.