DOJ tells Jim Jordan it won’t portion knowledge about ongoing probes

Just minutes ago, the Justice Department dealt a major blow to Republicans, hoping to investigate the president. DOJ signaled it will fight House Republicans over their document requests as part of their committee probes.

Into Biden's past. We have a team of correspondents covering these breaking developments. CNN's Phil Mattingly is at the White House. And as Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill. We're going to start with CNN's Paula Reid. Paula, give us the latest on what.

The Justice Department is telling House Republicans. Well, Victor, we certainly didn't expect that the Justice Department was just going to hand over evidence related to a series of ongoing criminal investigations. But in this letter to House.

Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, the Justice Department makes it clear that they are unlikely to comply with his broad request for information on a number of different matters. Now, the department makes it clear, though,.

They believe oversight is important. They do want to cooperate, but they need to balance that against the need to protect ongoing criminal investigations. Jordan has made it clear, though, he wants to examine how the Justice Department.

Has handled a series of matters, including its ongoing investigations into former President Trump and current President Joe Biden and the possible mishandling of classified documents. This letter really lays out the hurdles that Jordan is going to face.

So right now, he's not getting anything from the Justice Department, but this letter lays out how they want to go into these negotiations to see if they can possibly accommodate any of his requests.

But in the short time those requests are going to go unanswered. Okay. So Manu, what are House Republicans going to do now? Well, they haven't officially said yet. They are just received the letter.

But you can expect they're not going to take this lying down. They certainly have the ability to issue a subpoena. And we'll see how the Justice Department would respond to that. This is what we can expect probably.

Over the next several months and years to be for Republicans who are now in charge to be frustrated that some of their demands will not be met. This happened when the Democrats took control of the House back in 2019. They issued letter.

After letter, a subpoena after a subpoena to the Trump administration. The Trump administration didn't respond sometimes that went to court and that led to a year long drag out, knockdown, drag out fight. And we'll see if that ever gets to that. If they reach some sort of accommodation where the House Judiciary Committee.

Could get some answers. But there are still some questions that some Democrats have. Democrats want to make sure that the documents that were mishandled by the president were did not include any information that could harm national security,.

Including one Democrat that I just spoke with, Senator Ben Cardin, who said that the president needs to be completely transparent about what happened I want to see complete transparency on how this is handled and brought forward to the American people.

I'm convinced there is no intent by the president to do something that was wrong. Do you think this hurts him politically? Are you concerned about that at all? Well, this is a matter that needs to get. The president needs to get behind. He has to get all the information out. He has to squared away and make it clear.

That there was no intent here, that it was kept in a place that did not compromise the national security of America, and that there are steps in place today to make sure this does not happen in the future. And there have been bipartisan requests for more information.

About the president's handling of the situation. The Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Democrats, has asked for a briefing to ensure that there was no damage that was done to national security by the release of these documents. And when Congress returns next week.

From its recess, expect those calls to intensify from Republicans in particular, but also some Democrats as well. All right, Phil, to you at the White House. The president, he spoke out about the mishandled documents investigation.

What did he say this time? You know, I think it's interesting the context of what we've been discussing here, how the White House views investigations in a very different manner. And let's start with House Republicans.

You heard what the Justice Department laid out, as Paula reported. White House officials have also received a number of document requests related to this issue of classified documents from House Republican chairs. Haven't responded yet, have said they would respond.

To good faith efforts, but have also attacked members of that committee repeatedly with an kind of implicit way of saying they don't view any of the questions that they've gotten up to this point, as in good faith. So that'll be something.

To keep an eye on. They view obviously the special counsel investigation in a very different manner. However, the president in his first public remarks in a couple of days on the issue, gave you a pretty good window into how senior White House officials.

Are both viewing things at this moment and engaging on a generally. Take a listen we're fully cooperating. Looking forward to getting this resolved quickly. I think you're going to find there's nothing there. I have no regrets.

I'm following what the lawyers have told me. They want me to do exactly what we're doing. There's no there there. You point to two things there that I think are good windows into what I hear behind the scenes here.

The first is the idea of, no, they're there. You hear that a lot from White House officials that they believe, well, they don't have full visibility into the actual documents discovered They don't have a sense that this is going to end up.

With any major problems once the investigation is done. Now, granted, they don't know how long the investigation will take or where the special counsel will take things, but that's their view of things at the moment.

The other is the president's reference to his lawyers that has been so critical in how they've operated throughout this entire process, sometimes to the frustration of a lot of us who want more answers. Very clearly, looking at the legal side of things, far.

More than even the political or communication side, I. Okay. Paula Mato, Phil, thank you Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti joins us now. Renato, great to see you. So these Justice Department documents that the House oversight of the House.

Committees, the Republicans on House committees, want. Are there no documents that the Department of Justice could turn over to them that wouldn't jeopardize an ongoing investigation? There may be some, but I would say, Alisyn,.

That these requests, I think, are designed to achieve this response. In other words, there's a lot of things that the House could be engaging in oversight regarding the Justice Department. There's been a lot of high.

Profile investigations over the last few years of the former president. And obviously, a significant investigation into him. There's a lot of questions about how the Justice Department handles things, but instead they're focused on.

Ongoing criminal investigations. That's where the Justice Department is going to be the most sensitive are handing over information. That's where the courts and the law is going to be on their side. I almost you know, I'm not a political analyst,.

But I would just say that it seems like these are designed to to be to result in this result that we're seeing here. There's an interesting line here in this letter from the office of the assistant attorney general where they start the second paragraph.

Graph with. We welcome your interest in the department's work. I mean, it's kind of like we know you're coming for us. You have you have telegraphed this move, but they also in these pages.

Highlight that, yes, we expect and understand and it's appropriate for there to be oversight. But we have to stay within these parameters because we can't go too deep into even confirming the existence of an investigation.

Well, that's right. I mean, you know, if you if if I was sitting down with House members and they were asking me what are the things that we want to request, we can make.

They can generate actual documents in our possession, I'd say, look, there is a lot of investigations into the former president. You can look into how those are handled, those investigations that are already closed. You can look at them, the practices of the Justice Department.

There are a lot of questions legitimate questions about the practices that they have and, you know, political influence on the department more generally. There's a lot that they can look into, but there's focus on and ongoing.

Criminal investigations appears to me to be to have some political motives. I don't I wouldn't you know, I know there was a suggestion a moment ago comparing it to stonewalling during the Trump era. I don't regard that here. I think this is.

Sort of what you'd expect from the Justice Department regarding ongoing criminal investigations. So now the House can issue a subpoena for the documents to the DOJ and whose power trumps the other no pun intended. I mean, is it.

Does the DOJ have the last word on this, or does the oversight committee? Well, the beauty of our system is that neither side has the last word. Ultimately, the House is going to have to go to court if they want to enforce this and that.

We've seen that play out during the Trump administration where there were, I think, unprecedented refusals to produce documents due to Congress that ultimately went to the courts. And I think the public had to see that. It often takes a long time for the courts to resolve those matters.

And the same happened during the Obama administration when there were disputes about documents and records. And I think part of our system is that, you know, these these interplay between the branch's ultimately can be resolved.

By political power often rather than through any sort of definitive legal decision one way or the other.

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