Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is preparing to release the transcripts from interviews his committee conducted with witnesses as part of the investigation into the now-infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
In a letter to ranking member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., sent Thursday, Grassley, R-Iowa, said it is his “priority” to finalize and release the transcripts for the interviews conducted by the panel with Anatoli Samochornov, Donald Trump Jr., Irakly Kaveladze, Rob Goldstone, and Rinat Akhmetshin.
According to Grassley, staff still need to discuss a final review for transcript errors for the interviews with Goldstone and Akhmetshi, which he said he expects to “happen soon.”
Then, lawyers will have two weeks to review the transcripts, and then, the respective majority and minority staffs will make appropriate redactions to information that could “violate someone’s personal privacy” — the final step before making the transcripts public.
“Following this timeline, it may be a few weeks until the remaining transcripts can be released, but I am committed to working as quickly as we can, consistent with a careful and deliberate process so information that we would agree should be redacted does not accidentally get released because we acted in haste,” Grassley said.
Once the transcripts are released, Grassley said Senate Judiciary can then “determine when hearings should take place, and which witnesses should be called to testify.”
“When the public knows what we know, that will be the proper time for public hearings. We will also need to discuss possible use of compulsory process if a witness declines to voluntarily appear once an invitation to testify has been extended,” he said.
Feinstein already unilaterally released the testimony of Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson last month, even after Grassley said he was opposed to doing so. However, Grassley and Feinstein appeared to brush the issue aside, and carry on with bipartisanship in the committee’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
