A spokeswoman for Rep. Mike Conaway said he misspoke Sunday morning when he said the House Intelligence Committee was not tasked with investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
Conaway, R-Texas, was the leader of the committee’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. He told Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s “Meet The Press,” the committee was not tasked with investigating collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
But, his spokeswoman said he misspoke and actually meant to say “obstruction,” as in whether Trump firing FBI Director James Comey was obstruction of justice.
“As Mr. Conaway and Chuck Todd were discussing the firing of Andrew McCabe, Mr. Conaway remarked that HPSCI’s Russia Investigation wasn’t tasked with looking into the firing of James Comey, McCabe, or other issues related to allegations of obstruction of justice,” said Emily Hytha, spokeswoman for Conaway. “During that discussion, Mr. Conaway misspoke when he indicated the Committee did not investigate collusion, when he clearly meant obstruction.”
“The scope of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia Investigation covered four parameters, including if Russian active measures included links between Russia and individuals associated with political campaigns, or any other U.S. person. As Mr. Conaway announced on Monday and has stated repeatedly, including on Meet the Press, the Committee did not find evidence of collusion. We thoroughly investigated all four bipartisan parameters within our scope, and believe we have the information we need to present the American people with the facts we’ve uncovered.”
Conaway and other Republicans on the committee touted that they found no evidence of collusion when they unveiled a one-page summary of the report last week.
That made it a seemingly-striking comment when he said the committee was not tasked with turning up collusion.
“We were focused not so much on that, as it feeds into the collusion issue. Our committee was not charged with the collusion idea. We weren’t focused on that idea,” he said to Todd.
