Democrats are finding ways to divert attention from a Justice Department inspector general report about the early stages of the Russia investigation, according to one Republican lawmaker.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Thursday that the House will pursue articles of impeachment against President Trump after weeks of testimony, setting up a likely vote before the end of the year. The announcement comes days ahead of when Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to release his findings regarding allegations of surveillance abuses against the Trump campaign.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Democrats are racing the clock, announcing, moving forward with articles of impeachment today,” Rep. John Ratcliffe said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
The Texas Republican cited Pelosi’s announcement as “Exhibit A” in validating his assessment last month that Democrats are rushing to beat out a potentially scathing revelation about the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.
Ratcliffe’s suspicions about a Democratic effort to suppress Horowitz’s report, which is due out on Monday, were further realized when the House Judiciary Committee, which has taken up the reins on the impeachment proceedings, announced its next hearing will take place on the same day.
“Obviously, they will have succeeded in splitting coverage in terms of the inspector general’s report. There’s going to be a lot of news that day,” Ratcliffe said. “And I think that’s intentional, and I think it’s because the Democrats know the things that the Democratic leadership have been saying about the FISA process, I think, are going to be proven not to be, in large extent, true with the release of that report.”
Horowitz began his investigation in March 2018 after a memo from the Republicans leading the House Intelligence Committee alleged the FBI misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about the unverified dossier by British ex-spy Christopher Steele. In a rebuttal to the GOP memo, Democrats argued the Justice Department and the FBI “met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed to meet FISA’s probable cause requirement.” More recently, Democrats have raised concerns about information on U.S. intelligence-gathering potentially being weaponized to attack Trump’s political foes and discredit special counsel Robert Mueller.
A great deal of media coverage in recent months has focused on the impeachment fight, in which Democrats have accused Trump of abusing his office for political gain while Trump and his defenders have called it a sham. By comparison, there have been some leaks in recent days about a draft report about Horowitz finding missteps and lapses in judgment by the FBI but no political bias by top officials tainting the Russia investigation.
But a skeptical Ratcliffe said the coverage of the FISA report so far “has not been accurate or fair,” and he suspects the leaks are coming from witnesses in the investigation who are “trying to frame the narrative” before the report comes out.
As for when the FISA report gets released, Ratcliffe anticipates it will not get as much media coverage as impeachment.
“Much of the media have not been honest brokers,” he said, adding that Americans across the country are concerned about “an erosion of a free and fair, independent press.”
Following the report’s expected release on Monday, the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing with Horowitz to testify about his findings. Ratcliffe, who is a member of both the intelligence and judiciary panels, doubts a similar hearing will take place in the House.
“No chance,” he said when asked if Chairman Jerry Nadler would hold a hearing on the FISA report once it is released. “Jerry Nadler is going to run, not walk, away from any opportunity to bring the inspector general in to talk about these issues.”
The ranking member on the committee, Georgia Republican Doug Collins, has asked Nadler to schedule a hearing. “FISA oversight falls squarely within the Judiciary Committee’s jurisdiction. We must act swiftly to address concerns outlined in the Inspector General’s report,” he wrote in a letter to Nadler.
The partisan divide manifested in September, when both parties clashed during a rare congressional hearing on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ahead of a reauthorization deadline. In the face of Republicans alleging FISA abuse, Democrats dismissed the prospect of wrongdoing.
“I’m not aware of any terrible problem with the FISA court and specifically not with the Carter Page application,” Nadler, a New York Democrat, said.
More than two months later, a hearing focused on Horowitz’s report has not been scheduled by the committee. A representative for Nadler did not respond to a request for comment.
Republican Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows also pressed House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney to hold a FISA report hearing, making the request to the New York Democrat in a letter this week. A representative for Maloney did not respond to a request for comment about whether such a hearing might be scheduled.
