The Democrat-led House Intelligence Committee released dozens of witness interview transcripts and related material from its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, made the documents public on Thursday, ending a lengthy standoff with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence over the declassification process. He was also facing rising pressure from Republicans, who in 2018 joined with Democrats in voting unanimously to release the transcripts, and were accusing him of blocking their release.
Back in April of that year, the Republicans, who were in command of the House Intelligence Committee at the time, released a report that said they found no collusion in their investigation into links between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Democrats argued the inquiry was shut down prematurely.
A year later, special counsel Robert Mueller said his team’s investigation “did not establish” any criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. In the fall, Schiff, who by then had become chairman, pledged to quickly move on dozens of the transcripts.
He has long stressed there was clear evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but Republicans argue these documents will reveal his bluff.
Forty-three of the 53 transcripts had gone through the declassification process and were returned to Schiff over half a year ago. A sticking point with the remaining 10 transcripts had been the desire by the ODNI to allow the White House to review them as part of the declassification process, which Schiff rejected. The ODNI relented, providing the declassified versions of the remaining 10 transcripts this week.
“The transcripts released today richly detail evidence of the Trump campaign’s efforts to invite, make use of, and cover up Russia’s help in the 2016 presidential election,” Schiff said in a Thursday statement.
Schiff accused the White House of “hijacking” the process during an interview with Politico in September. The outlet reported at the time that “Schiff still intends to release the bulk of the Russia transcripts in the near future.”
Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell pushed Schiff to quickly release the interviews earlier this week.
“All of the transcripts, with required redactions can be released to the public without any concerns of disclosing classified material,” Grenell’s letter said. “In the interests of transparency and accountability, I urge you to honor your previous public statements, and your Committee’s unanimous vote on this matter, to release all 53 cleared transcripts to all Members of Congress and the American public as soon as possible.”
The acting spy chief added: “I am also willing to release the transcripts directly from the ODNI, as to ensure we comply with the unanimous and bipartisan vote to release the transcripts.”
The declassification process by the ODNI was expected to take just a few weeks or months. Nearly two years later, GOP lawmakers and Trump administration officials increasingly pinned the blame on Schiff for the delay.
“Adam Schiff is thwarting the will of the House Intelligence Committee as expressed in the bipartisan vote in September 2018 to make these transcripts public,” one senior intelligence official told the Washington Examiner late last month. “He has appointed himself arbiter of what the public should see and has refused to allow the White House to review its own equities, making declassification of 10 of the transcripts impossible. It’s difficult to imagine any motive other than Schiff is still trying to control the narrative on Russia collusion.”
Schiff’s spokesperson said Wednesday, “We are now reviewing the proposed redactions from ODNI based on classification, law enforcement sensitivity, or items ODNI requests be for official use only.” The official also cast doubt on the trustworthiness of the redactions, claiming that, “Given the overtly political role now played by the Acting DNI, including the leak of his letter, this committee and the public can have little confidence that his determinations are made on the merits.”
Despite Schiff’s claims, it appears the declassifications took place before Grenell took the top spy perch earlier this year.
The 10 transcripts that Schiff successfully blocked the White House from viewing are from interviews of President Trump’s son-in-law and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, former chief executive for the Trump campaign Steve Bannon, former Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, former White House deputy assistant Keith Schiller, and Mary McCord, a former assistant attorney general for national security who was involved in the FBI’s Russia investigation.
Among the 43 other now-public witness interviews was testimony by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Donald Trump Jr., White House adviser Hope Hicks, longtime Trump friend and recently convicted “fixer” Roger Stone, former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Perkins Coie lawyers Michael Sussman, a former DOJ lawyer who passed along alleged details about Russian interference to former FBI general counsel James Baker, and Marc Elias, the chairman who was the Clinton campaign’s general counsel and who hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the campaign, were also among them.
The committee did not release transcripts for interviews with Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who stepped down as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election cycle following the release of stolen DNC emails, and former GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.
Rep. Devin Nunes, who is the top Republican on the panel, told Fox Business on Wednesday there is no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion in the transcripts, but noted they will likely show “people who were not so truthful to Congress.”
