On July 11, 2017, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein wrote letters asking Carl Ghattas, then executive assistant director of the FBI National Security Branch, and James Rybicki, then chief of staff and senior counsel to the FBI director, to make themselves available for transcribed interviews the week of July 24, 2017. Byron York at the Washington Examiner quoted the request: the committee was investigating “the removal of FBI Director James Comey, Russian interference in the 2016 election, and allegations of improper interference in law enforcement investigations.”
On July 27, 2017, acting Assistant Attorney General Samuel Ramer wrote that the department would not make Ghattas or Rybicki available. York quotes the letter: pending matters and “long-standing policy regarding the confidentiality and sensitivity of information relating to pending matters.” CNN first reported that July refusal, as the Associated Press later noted.
Grassley and Feinstein wrote again on August 25, 2017, to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. They said de-confliction talks with the special counsel’s office had clarified a limited scope: independent recollections, as fact witnesses, of events before and including Comey’s removal — not the witnesses’ then-current work with Mueller. York prints that language. September 1 passed without scheduled interviews, York wrote.
A September 11, 2017, letter from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, obtained by Fox News and CBS News, said the committee’s inquiry “has not been de-conflicted with Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation” and that the department would not provide Ghattas or Rybicki “at this time” in order to “protect the integrity” of that investigation. The Associated Press reported the same Boyd letter.
Fox News, September 27–28, 2017: Grassley threatened to subpoena the two officials. Topics Grassley named: improper political influence or bias, Comey’s firing, the Clinton email investigation, FBI activities related to Donald Trump and his associates, and Russian interference in the 2016 election. The Daily Caller reported the same threat the next day.
This page records that he was sought as a witness. It does not find that he ran Crossfire Hurricane, opened a FISA, or committed a crime. Oversight interest is not a finding of misconduct. He is not Peter Strzok. He is not Bill Priestap.