The House Intelligence Committee majority announced Monday that, having found no evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians, they are wrapping up the information-gathering part of their Russia probe. “We will now be moving into the next phases of this investigation,” said Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), “working with the minority on a report to give the American people answers to the questions they’ve been asking for over a year.”
Conaway knows better than to think he’s going to get any cooperation from Democrats on the committee in crafting a final report. Considering the committee’s contentious wrangling over the Republicans’ brief memo alleging that the FBI and Department of Justice misrepresented evidence before the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, one can only imagine how ugly the row will be over a 150-page summary report.
Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, has already made it clear he is unhappy. He accused Republicans of committing “a profound disservice to the country,” and warned they “will be held accountable of abandoning a critical investigation of such vital national importance.”
What does the committee know and what doesn’t it know? And what can we know? The answers are to be found in the sworn testimony given to House investigators. According to Conaway, the committee has interviewed 73 witnesses over the last year. We know who some of those witnesses were—including Carter Page, Roger Stone, and Jared Kushner—but don’t know what most of them have said. Almost all the testimony has been behind closed doors.
A rare exception came with the release this January of the committee’s interview with Glenn Simpson, the opposition researcher whose company, Fusion GPS, commissioned the so-called Steele Dossier for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The 165-page transcript is a trove of telling details. Even when Simpson bobs and weaves to avoid answering, the results are revealing.
And not just revealing, but transparent. Absent the original testimony, we could be told that Simpson was relentlessly evasive and self-aggrandizing, but most are likely to believe that or not based on preconceptions and partisan leanings. By contrast, we don’t need to trust the messenger—whether that’s Republican Devin Nunes or Democrat Adam Schiff—if we can read the original source material ourselves.
If the House Intel Committee majority wants to put its investigation to rest, the best way is not with a long report that is likely to be contested until the hour the Democrats take over the House—an event that may be in less than a year. Rather than a summary, selections, and synthesis of the evidence gathered, the committee can vote to release everything it has collected.
But what, we might ask, of the problem that some or much of the material may be classified? For starters, there is probably little or nothing in the testimony of a character such as Roger Stone that is classified. No doubt, that will be a tougher question when it comes to FBI and Department of Justice witness transcripts. But even if the committee produces merely a report, it already anticipates wrestling with the bureau and DoJ over what can and can’t be made public. Better to put that effort into declassifying all the original source material rather than getting a redacted final report, the legitimacy of which will be denied until doomsday.
The entire Russia affair—whether it’s allegations that Team Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin’s criminal police state, or revelations that federal law enforcement abused their surveillance powers—has enormously damaged public trust in government and faith in its institutions. A contested House Intelligence Committee report wrapping up its investigation is sure to be yet another corrosive. What’s needed is the trust that comes from transparency. And nothing would be as transparent as to simply release the entirety of the testimony and other evidence that is in the committee’s possession.
If investigators have been lax or credulous, it will be obvious; if witnesses have been dishonest, it will be obvious; if institutions have been corrupted, it will be obvious. Release the transcripts.
