Devin Nunes is up to something. The House Intelligence Committee chairman has been writing letters lately, asking that two other House chairman — Bob Goodlatte of the Judiciary Committee and Trey Gowdy of the Oversight Committee — pick up parts of the Trump-Russia investigation that Nunes started. It’s as if Nunes, who shook loose some of the key publicly-known facts in the probe, is having a grand going-out-of-business sale. But that’s clearly not the case. So what, in fact, is going on?
The short version is that the investigation is expanding to the two additional committees, even as Nunes devotes his own committee’s resources to learning whether the FBI used informants against the 2016 Trump campaign and, if so, how many, when, and how much money was spent on the project. Both Judiciary and Oversight have more staff than Intelligence, and thus more capacity to handle multiple witnesses. They also have more direct oversight responsibility for parts of the Justice Department and other arms of the federal government under examination by House investigators.
Last fall Goodlatte and Gowdy announced the formation of a joint Judiciary-Oversight task force to investigate “decisions made by the Department of Justice in 2016.” At the time of the announcement, on Oct. 24, 2017, the focus was mostly on various aspects of the Clinton email investigation. But it has since broadened to include the Trump-Russia probe, which involved many of the same key players at the Justice Department. Now, it is the vehicle to continue parts of the original House Intel investigation.
In the last week Nunes has sent three letters to Goodlatte and Gowdy, each recommending a number of people that the task force should interview. The first letter focused on current and former officials of the Justice Department and FBI, 17 in all, whose actions formed the focus of the first phase of Nunes’ investigation, on the Trump dossier. The second letter focused on current and former officials of the State Department and some other agencies, 10 in all, whose role in the dossier and other matters formed the second part of Nunes’ probe. And the third letter focused on people outside of government, 15 in all, whose names have popped up throughout the investigation.
Each letter listed some intriguing interview subjects — some that have been the topic of public discussion and some that haven’t. Nunes said the same thing in all three letters: “For the sake of transparency and to keep the American people as fully informed as possible about these matters, the task force should consider interviewing these individuals in an open setting.”
The Justice Department and FBI letter included some obvious names — Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, Bill Priestap — but also Tashina Gauhar, a little-known but high ranking DOJ official; Gregory Brower, until recently an FBI official who handled the bureau’s (increasingly difficult) relations with Congress; David Laufman, until recently a prosecutor who took part in the Clinton and Trump-Russia investigations; and several others. Some, like McCabe and, recently, Strzok, have talked to Congress about the Trump-Russia probe before. Others never have.
The State Department letter included Jake Sullivan, a former top aide to both President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and Victoria Nuland and Jonathan Winer, who were known to have played a role in the department’s handling of the Trump dossier, but also Kathleen Kavalec, recently nominated by President Trump to be U.S. ambassador to Albania; Lewis Lukens, a top U.S. diplomat in London; and Shailagh Murray, a former Wall Street Journal and Washington Post reporter who became a top aide to both Vice President Joe Biden and Obama and is also married to Neil King, a former Journal reporter who left the paper in late 2016 to join the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which started the Trump dossier.
The final letter, the people outside government letter, included King, as well as his bosses at Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson and Thomas Catan; Mary Jacoby, another former Journal reporter who is married to Simpson; former Clinton campaign chief Robby Mook; Nellie Ohr, wife of Bruce Ohr, the Justice Department official closely involved with the Trump dossier; top Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, and the man-who-needs-no-introduction, Sidney Blumenthal.
Nunes recommended that either Judiciary or Oversight committee interview each. If that were to happen, investigators would undoubtedly learn more about the Obama administration’s Russia-related actions toward Trump. But it’s not clear if Goodlatte and Gowdy will get to them all.
And one last thing: the clock is running. The midterm elections are four months away. Some Republicans are increasingly confident they will keep control of the House. But there is a good chance, some would say a very good chance, that they won’t. And if Democrats take over the House, there will be no more Republican chairmen. There will be no more Republican subpoenas, no more demands that Fusion GPS figures testify. The Intelligence, Judiciary, and Oversight committees will likely be run by Adam Schiff, Jerrold Nadler, and Elijah Cummings, or in any event by Democrats. It would be an understatement to say the committees’ investigative focus will radically change. The current GOP committee leadership has done a lot in the last year. But their time might be running out.
