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Representative Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) Is seen at the Trade Policy Hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee at Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on March 21st. (Jose Luis Magana / AP)
The House's Intelligence Committee voted Friday to publish almost all the transcripts of interviews conducted as part of an investigation into Russian interference in the panel's intervention earlier this year, when Republicans very controversial report criticizing the intelligence community's conclusion that the Kremlin favored President Trump in the 2016 elections.
Panel Democrats have called for the publication of investigative documents in Russia for months, but it is only in recent weeks that the group's chairman, Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Has also stated that transcripts should to be made public. done before the mid-term elections. This did not resolve political tensions, however, Republicans and Democrats from the already fractured commission explained why the panel had omitted five transcripts of the interview.
"They are trying to bury them as long as they can," Democratic Republican Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) Said of the Republicans, who rejected the Democrats' efforts to release all the transcripts. closed Friday morning. The Democrats eventually backed the final vote to release the transcripts of all but five interviews conducted during the investigation.
The five missing transcripts include in-camera interviews with three former spy chiefs, former FBI director James B. Comey, former NSA director Adm. Mike Rogers, and former CIA Director John Brennan. A transcript of the panel interview with former National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper Jr. will be included in the transcripts, pending the expurgations of the intelligence community.
The panel also chose not to publish transcripts of interviews with two incumbent Congress members, representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Head of the Democratic National Committee when her e-mails were hacked, and Dana Rohrabacher (R -Calif.), Who had various contacts with Russian officials. Schiff said Friday that Wasserman Schultz had no objection to his interview being made public.
The vote paves the way for the publication of 53 transcripts as early as next week, provided the intelligence community does not dispute the publication of interview information. Democratic and Republican members of the committee said there was not much classified information in the interviews and that transcripts should be simple. However, the Republicans have nevertheless decided to send all the reports to the intelligence community to review, despite the objections of Democrats, said Mr. Schiff, and they should publish the transcripts en masse once all the documents will have been redacted.
Schiff added that the Democratic Committee would likely publish additional transcripts that they conducted independently of the panel's Republicans at the time the others were made public. He complained, however, that the Republicans of the committee voted against the Democrats' efforts to hand over a complete, unredacted set of his interview transcripts to the inquiry of Special Advisor Robert S. Mueller III, including any confidential information.
"We suspect that people have testified before our committee falsely and committed perjury," Schiff said. "The special council is best placed to determine, on the basis of the additional information available to it, which may have perjured itself."
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