The U.S. intelligence community is nearing the completion of a classification review for dozens of transcripts from the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation.
“Throughout this process we have cooperatively worked with the committee to complete the review in a timely manner, and we expect to complete the [intelligence community’s] review very soon,” a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told the Daily Caller.
Eight months ago, in September, the House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously to release the transcripts of 53 of 73 witness interviews from the investigation. “Transcripts will be scrubbed for personally identifying info then sent for declassification review,” a committee spokesman told the Washington Examiner at the time. The release of the transcripts was expected to follow within a couple weeks and lawmakers have become frustrated with the long wait.
Included in the list of transcripts that have been queued up for review and release are a number of Obama administration officials, including former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power, and former White House counselor John Podesta, who went on to become chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Ex-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, who was fired by President Trump last year, and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe are also on the list.
A number of Trump associates and current and former officials are there as well, including: first son Donald Trump Jr., former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, presidential son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, former White House communications director Hope Hicks, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Trump confidant Roger Stone, and Trump’s ex-personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
The updated from the ODNI comes a couple weeks after House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said during a meeting that committee staff had been in negotiations to speed up that process and hoped for a public release in the near future.
The panel, then led by Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, released its final report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election in April 2018, finding no collusion. Democrats accused Republicans of conducting an incomplete and misleading investigation. With Democrats winning control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections, Schiff has reignited the inquiry.
