Republicans plan to publish Russia's transcripts



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Representative Devin Nunes, who chairs the House's Intelligence Committee, convened a meeting on Friday, September 28, 2018 to vote on the publication of transcripts of the commission's talks in Russia. (Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press)

The House's Intelligence Committee has announced its intention to hold a meeting on Friday at which legislators should vote to publish the transcripts of the majority of interviews conducted throughout its investigation into Russian interference in elections presidential elections of 2016. the intelligence community.

Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Announced Wednesday evening at 9 am the committee meeting, listing 53 transcripts that the panel hoped to publish publicly. The list includes panel interviews with prominent figures such as Donald Trump Jr., Advocate General Jeff Sessions and former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon.

The account omits several talks that the Democrats hoped to eventually be made public, with high-profile witnesses such as former FBI director James B. Comey, former director of the National Security Agency Mike Rogers, and representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.).

The Republican majority officially ended its investigation into Russian interference in April, with the release of a report on the GOP only which determined that the intelligence community had not respected its own standards by determining that Russia had intervened in the 2016 elections with the intention of helping President Trump to run for office. A bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued in July, challenged this conclusion, but rather supported the intelligence community's assessment that the Kremlin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton.

The Democrats of the Intelligence Committee have called for the panel to publish transcripts of the interviews it had conducted with the GOP report, which they listed in their report on minority opinions, published in parallel with the GOP's findings. Earlier this month, Nunes began calling on the Russian committee to investigate the transcripts to be published as well, saying on Fox News that "the depositions we have taken, I think about 70 people, have to be published and have to be published. I think before the elections.

Members will vote on the opportunity to make public the 53 transcripts listed, probably at the last minute, as the House must leave Washington at the end of the week and stay away from the Capitol until November election day. . If the panel votes for the interview transcripts to be public, it may still take several days before they are published. The documents have not yet been redacted, although members do not think that there is a significant amount of classified information in these that will need to be removed.

The panel will also vote on the transmission of "certain classified meeting documents" to the intelligence community. It was not immediately clear what this item of the agenda mentioned. Democrats in the panel are eager to ensure that the transcripts, evidence and other elements of the interviews they conducted are not simply disseminated to the public, but that their work and conclusions, as well as the classified elements that it implies, be transferred to the special investigation of the lawyer Robert S. Mueller III.

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