Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said Tuesday the GOP minority in the House Intelligence Committee last week offered up the names of roughly a dozen people they want to subpoena as the Democrats revitalize the panel’s Russia investigation.
Nunes, the ranking member of the committee, cautioned he has little hope in Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., taking him up on the request made during last week’s closed business meeting, but he stressed that plans are moving forward regardless to investigate alleged political bias in the FBI.
“We are going to continue to call people in for interviews,” he said in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity. “Just last week, the new chairman of the committee said that he is going to reopen the Russia investigation. We offered about a dozen subpoenas of people that we wanted to subpoena. We don’t expect for them to subpoena the people that we want, but at every attempt that we can, at every opportunity that we get, we will make attempts to subpoena these people to come in and speak.”
He also said the GOP minority will ask people to come in voluntarily and speak.
Nunes said these interviews will bolster the work already begun last year by a joint GOP task force comprised of the Judiciary Committee and the Oversight Committee. During an interview with the Hill.TV that aired Monday, he said staff from the House Intelligence Committee have joined the effort, poring over more than a dozen transcripts as they consider making criminal referrals.
Although Republicans in the House now lack subpoena power, Nunes said their strongest asset moving forward will be Trump’s attorney general nominee William Barr, who is expected to be confirmed this week.
“Look, we need the new attorney general to get in there, and then we will be making criminal referrals on many people who lied to Congress and many other bad things,” Nunes said Tuesday evening.
