Rep. Mike Conaway admitted Sunday the House Intelligence Committee was not tasked with finding any evidence of collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.
When Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a one-page report summarizing their findings during their investigation, the talking point pressed the most by GOP lawmakers was that there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Conaway himself touted that finding in a call with reporters.
However, when he spoke to NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday, Conaway admitted the committee wasn’t looking for 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.
Later on Sunday, 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 added that the committee did not interview some major players in the Russian meddling in the 2016 election, including George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign aide.
Papadopoulos has been charged with lying to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators in his investigation into the Russian interference in the election. Papadopoulos kick-started the FBI’s investigation into Russian actions by bragging to an Australian diplomat that he had a Russian source who was willing to feed him damaging information on Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign.
Conaway said the committee did not interview Papadopoulos because he got caught up in Mueller’s probe.
“He got outside the opportunity for us to interview him when he was charged and got caught up in the Mueller investigation,” Conaway said. “We’re trying to stay away from the Mueller investigation and not confuse that or hurt it one way or the other … The other issue is we couldn’t feel a real good link between Papadopoulos himself and his braggadociousness and the Trump campaign. He was at the edge of the circumstances.”
