Speaker Ryan: 'We Clearly Expect the Administration to Honor Our Document Requests'

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) (Photo: Screen capture/Speaker.gov)

(CNSNews.com) - House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told a news conference on Tuesday he expects the Trump Justice Department to honor congressional document requests.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House intelligence committee, on Sunday said on Sunday he plans to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena for documents related alleged FISA surveillance abuse.

"I have not spoken to him (Nunes) about it," Ryan said on Tuesday. "We expect the administration to comply with our document requests as a matter of form for ...our legislative branch oversight. So I haven't spoken with Devin about this. We have a thorough process we go through, but we clearly expect the administration to honor our document requests."

Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a reporter on Monday that the Justice Department has written to Nunes "and responded as appropriate to him. The request he’s made is one that the intelligence communities and the Department of Justice feels is not grantable. We've explained that we’d like — that we’d be willing to talk to him about it," Sessions said, "the details of which I couldn’t discuss.”

Nunes, appearing Sean Hannity's show Monday night, complained again about Justice Department stonewalling:

"We sent a letter two weeks ago to the Department of Justice -- a classified letter. They ignored that letter. We had to then issue a subpoena last week. We issued a subpoena. Then finally on Thursday, they got back to us and said they weren't going to comply with the subpoena."

"How soon will you hold Jeff sessions in contempt?" Hannity asked Nunes.

"Look, I want to talk to Mr. Sessions. So the Attorney General Sessions said he wants to discuss things. That's good. I want to talk to him. I actually don't believe that Mr. Sessions saw my letter. I really don't. I don't think the attorney general saw it.

“So then we had to move to the subpoena, which I'm sure he found out about that. But you know, at the end of the day he is in charge there...I mean, at some point, the recusal gets ridiculous."

Nunes said the Justice Department should stop making the problem worse by withholding information. "Just give us all the information, just give it to us, so the investigators that have the oversight role can properly go through everything.

“The more that they spread this out, bit by bit by bit, the more ridiculous they look and the more dishonest they look and the more corrupt it looks to the American people," Nunes added.