Speaker Ryan backs Nunes in battle with Justice Department over documents

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday said the Trump administration should comply with a new request from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes for classified documents from the Justice Department, the latest battle between the California Republican and the DOJ for information in his oversight investigation.

"We clearly expect the administration to honor our document requests," Ryan said at a news conference Tuesday.

Ryan, who said he hadn't spoken to Nunes directly about the matter, declined to say whether he supports Nunes' threat to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with the request and a subpoena for the classified materials.

Nunes first threatened to hold Sessions in contempt of Congress - a rare step for a Republican chairman to take against a Republican attorney general - on Sunday in an interview with "Fox and Friends," after the Justice Department said in a letter that it would not provide documents in response to his request "regarding a specific individual."

"Disclosure of responsive information to such requests can risk severe consequences, including potential loss of human lives, damage to relationships with valued international partners, compromise of ongoing criminal investigations, and interference with intelligence activities," assistant attorney general Stephen Boyd said in a letter to Nunes.

On Monday, Nunes doubled down on the threat and questioned the Justice Department's assertion that the White House also opposed providing Congress with the requested information.

"I just don’t believe that the White House does not want to comply with a subpoena from Congress that is pertinent to our investigation that we’ve had ongoing for a long time," said Nunes, adding that he had not spoken to the president about the issue but had sent the White House a letter about his request.

He declined to describe the information he has requested, only saying it fell under his continuing investigation of abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other matters.

Democrats have criticized Nunes' request and accused him of escalating a conflict with senior Justice Department officials in an effort to defend President Donald Trump from the ongoing special counsel Russia investigation.

"This is part of an ever-escalating series of demands of the Justice Department whose object is not to actually get the documents or materials but to provoke confrontation with the Justice Department to give the president pretext to fire people at Justice, push out the attorney general or undermine the special counsel," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the committee, said Monday.