Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., have called on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees to release an unclassified transcript of FBI agent Peter Strzok’s closed-door congressional interview.
Nadler, the ranking member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, and Cummings, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued a statement Wednesday night following the conclusion of the 11-hour long process, claiming that “today’s transcript will make crystal clear, House Republicans are desperately trying to find something—anything—to undermine Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign.”
The statement claimed that “Strzok’s testimony is consistent with everything we already knew about the FBI’s handling of the Clinton investigation and the early stages of the Russia investigation.”
“As the Inspector General concluded, no perceived bias influenced the outcome of the Clinton investigation, and as the Inspector General already explained, Special Counsel Mueller removed Mr. Strzok from his team immediately after learning of his communications with Lisa Page,” it reads.
The lawmakers not only called on Chairmen Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., to release Wednesday’s transcript but to also release “every other interview conducted during this investigation. Let the public see how little they have to show for this partisan fishing expedition.”
“House Republicans are obsessed with re-investigating the Inspector General’s investigation, re-interviewing witnesses who were already interviewed, and holding ‘emergency’ hearings on Hillary Clinton’s emails, all while blocking efforts to conduct credible and desperately needed oversight of the Trump Administration on any number of more urgent topics—starting with the President’s ongoing child separation crisis on the border,” they closed, before demanding Republicans “stop trying to undermine” the special counsel’s investigation.
Lawmakers were largely split along party lines following Strzok’s interview, with Republicans claiming it showed signs that his political bias influenced his work on both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Russian election tampering.
Democrats, however, argued that the anti-Trump messages he exchanged with his lover, Lisa Page, were simply personal, intimate conversations.
