The House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday plans to release a statement defining the scope of its “full blown” investigation into Russian hacking prior to the 2016 elections, including whether there were contacts between the Trump campaign and any Russian officials.
“We will have a statement we will put out on that today,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., adding a public report will likely follow.
Nunes and other Republican leaders on Tuesday repeated their belief that there is, so far, no evidence of any contact between Russia and officials who worked on the campaign of president.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters Tuesday, “We had seen no evidence so far based upon the investigation that has already been conducted. We’ve been investigating it and we are going to continue to investigate it to ensure no stone is unturned.”
According to Nunes, the planned probe “will be all-encompassing … to do a full-blown investigation of before and after with all the election activity.”
Nunes said it will be conducted separately from a Senate Intelligence Committee probe.
“At the end of the day I assume we are going to have things to present to the American people,” Nunes said.
Nunes said the investigation will include who in the U.S. government has been leaking information to the media about the Trump administration, including the contents of a wiretapped call between ousted national security adviser Mike Flynn and the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Nunes told reporters it’s not clear at this point who the panel will question about the Russian connection because so far, intelligence officials have not shown any proof of contacts between Russia and people working for political campaigns.
“We would bring anybody in if we had evidence, but we are not going to bring anybody in without evidence of any kind and my guess is it doesn’t exist because of what I’ve been presented so far,” Nunes said.
Nunes said if new evidence surfaces that he had not been given, “then we are going to have a problem with the agencies who are withholding information from Congress.”
Ryan told reporters that the House Intelligence panel has long been probing Russian hacking and Russian interference in U.S. elections.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified the position Flynn held in President Trump’s administration. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.
