House Intel votes for publication of transcripts of interviews in Russia



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The committee voted in a bipartisan manner to publish the transcripts of most investigative interviews in Russia. However, they will not be released immediately as the group sends them to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Services for confidential review.

California Republican Adam Schiff, a top Democrat on the committee, said the Democrats had proposed a motion to make public also the transcripts that the Republicans were not proposing to publish. These included panel interviews with his colleagues, representatives Dana Rohrabacher and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and auditions where James Comey, former FBI director, former NSA director Mike Rogers and the former director of the CIA James Brennan.

Democratic movements were rejected in party votes, Schiff said, and the Democrats finally joined their Republican colleagues to support the publication of the 53 transcripts that were included.

The transcripts include the committee's talks with some of Trump's closest associates, including his son Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Steve Bannon, Corey Lewandowski, Hope Hicks and Roger Stone.

The committee also conducted interviews with former officials of the Obama administration who will be released, including former Attorney General Sally Yates, the former US ambassador to the United States. UN Samantha Power and former Deputy National Security Advisor, Ben Rhodes.

In addition to hearing witnesses, the transcripts are also likely to detail the bitter partisan divisions that materialized during the one-year interview in Russia, which Republicans concluded in March by concluding that they had found no evidence of collusion between the Trump team and Russia.

Democrats accused Republicans of not investigating properly, and they continued to conduct their own talks without Republicans. Schiff said that they could also publish these interview transcripts.

The committee asked the executive to scrub all the transcripts and then send them back to the panel for release, Schiff said, adding that the process would not be clear for the thousands of pages submitted. for exam.

Schiff said the Democrats have tried to make sure that the committee publishes unclassified transcripts without being reviewed by the executive branch, but this motion was rejected at a party line vote. The Republicans also rejected a move to immediately send all transcripts to Special Advisor Robert Mueller, Schiff said.

"We suspect that people have falsely testified before this committee and that they have committed perjury, and the special council is best placed to determine, on the basis of the additional information available to it, which ones have perjured themselves."

House Intelligence's chairman, Devin Nunes, declined to comment on the vote as he left the committee on Friday.

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