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White House sets meeting with GOP on informer

WASHINGTON — Top intelligence and law enforcement officials will meet on Thursday with Republican congressional leaders to share highly classified information related to an FBI informant who contacted members of the Trump campaign in the early days of the Russia investigation, a White House official said Tuesday.

The meeting promised to be a flash point in the standoff pitting President Donald Trump and his congressional allies against his own administration’s top law enforcement officials.

At the root of the dispute is a subpoena by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the House Intelligence Committee chairman, for documents referencing or related to the informant, an American academic who met on behalf of the FBI with Trump associates.

Top law enforcement and intelligence officials initially refused the request, saying disclosure would put the source at risk and endanger key intelligence partnerships. Nunes did not like that answer and threatened to hold the attorney general and his deputy in contempt of Congress.

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That was before Trump waded into the fray over the weekend, ordering the Justice Department to investigate the FBI’s use of the informant and all but siding with Nunes and his allies.

His demand prompted an outcry over whether he was assailing the independence of the Justice Department to gain information about the investigation into his campaign’s possible ties to Russia’s election interference. Democrats have long accused Nunes of exploiting his oversight role to undermine the inquiry.

The White House stepped in, ostensibly to mediate the dispute. The Thursday meeting will include Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI; Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence; and Edward O’Callaghan, a top Justice Department official, according to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary.

Absent from her list was Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who is overseeing the Russia investigation and who has tangled with Nunes.

Sanders said no one from the White House staff would attend the meeting.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

NICHOLAS FANDOS and KATIE BENNER © 2018 The New York Times

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