Schiff: Nunes Canceled Open Intel Hearing To ‘Choke Off Public Info’

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, meets with reporters to discuss the process for investigating whether or how Russia influenced the presidential election, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Feb. 27, 2017. House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes said earlier that Congress should not begin a McCarthy-style investigation based on news reports that a few Americans with ties to President Donald Trump had contacted Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign.   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, meets with reporters to discuss the process for investigating whether or how Russia influenced the presidential elec... Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, meets with reporters to discuss the process for investigating whether or how Russia influenced the presidential election, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Feb. 27, 2017. House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes said earlier that Congress should not begin a McCarthy-style investigation based on news reports that a few Americans with ties to President Donald Trump had contacted Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) charged Friday that his colleague on the House Intelligence Committee, Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), canceled an open hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 election in order to help the White House.

“I think this is a serious mistake,” Schiff said in a press briefing held one hour after Nunes gave his own briefing in which he announced the hearing was “postponed.”

“We don’t welcome cutting off public access to information,” he added, vocalizing an accusation he’d made earlier on Twitter:

Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan were scheduled to testify in an open hearing Tuesday.

Though Schiff said all three officials are still available and willing to appear, Nunes announced that the hearing would be postponed to allow FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers to speak to the committee in closed session.

Noting that Rogers and Comey testified in open hearing on Monday, Schiff called that move a “dodge.”

“I think that there must have been a very strong pushback from the White House about the nature of Monday’s hearing,” Schiff speculated, referring to Comey’s confirmation that the FBI was investigating whether there was any “cooperation” between Trump staffers and Russian officials.

“It’s hard for me to come to any other conclusion about why an agreed-upon hearing would be suddenly cancelled,” he said. “Clearly it had to do with the events of this week.”

Democrats, and even some GOP lawmakers, are deeply concerned about the credibility of the bipartisan commission’s investigation after Nunes on Wednesday told the White House that he’d viewed intelligence community reports showing that information about President Donald Trump and his staffers was “incidentally collected.”

Dumbfounded over Nunes’ decision to go to the press and Trump without consulting his own committee, Schiff accused his colleague of acting like a “surrogate of the White House.”

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. …would be postponed to allow FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers to speak to the committee in closed session.

    Since Chairman Nunsense was soooo stupid as to fall for the oldest spy/cop trick in the book (give him a nugget and see who he runs to first), why the hell would those two guys do anything remotely sensitive to him, much less the committee?

    What a total moron. Lawyer up, dumb ass, because you’re gettin’ charged at some point.

  2. Nunnes: I work for Trump/Russia and they are very very happy with my work.

  3. he panicked ?

  4. What is Nunes’ district like? Is it one of those right-wing Orange County conservative hotbeds? I hope his constituents - and someone looking to run against him - are paying close attention to these machinations.

  5. Avatar for pshah pshah says:

    Comrade Nunes wants to be the filter through which we receive information…a tactic he no doubt honed in Moscow.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

61 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for ajaykalra Avatar for littlegirlblue Avatar for clunkertruck Avatar for manhattan123 Avatar for arrrrrj Avatar for inversion Avatar for sniffit Avatar for thebigragu Avatar for sonsofares Avatar for jurisgal Avatar for ottnott Avatar for geofu54 Avatar for bboerner Avatar for pine Avatar for clauscph Avatar for bodie1 Avatar for richard_b Avatar for tj1 Avatar for tiowally Avatar for circusmax Avatar for katscherger Avatar for maximus Avatar for win

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: