House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes said Sunday that he intends to release all of the transcripts and documents from the committee’s interviews of about 70 people in its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The California Republican said in an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that he would release the materials “in the next few weeks” so that the public could review them before the midterm elections.
“The depositions that we took, I believe about seventy people, those need to be published and I think they need to be published before the election,” Nunes said. “I expect to make those available from our committee to the American public in the next few weeks.”
In a statement Sunday, the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, urged Nunes to facilitate the transcripts’ release “immediately.” Schiff called for Nunes to release all such interview materials in June, NBC reported.
“During the Russia investigation, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee repeatedly promised to release all the transcripts when their work was completed, and then reneged when it became clear the transcripts would show how often they acted as defense lawyers for Donald Trump rather than objective fact finders,” Schiff said Sunday. “We hope this time he will follow through on his commitment by scheduling a business meeting immediately and allowing a new vote to release all the transcripts.”
Nunes said Sunday that “70 or 80 percent” of the documents are not classified, and that the classified documents will be sent to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which Nunes criticized for often “foot-dragging.”
“The ones that are classified we will have to send to the Director of National Intelligence to declassify, but we hope that would only take a matter of days and they don’t do their normal foot-dragging where they slow roll and we don’t get these before the election.”
Nunes connected his push to have his committee’s materials out by the election to some House Republicans’ calls for President Donald Trump to fully declassify Justice Department documents related to the Russia investigation, such as the FBI’s application for a FISA warrant on former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page and the FBI’s notes from interviewing Justice official Bruce Ohr.
“Just for the sake of full transparency, because there’s so much that’s out there that’s misinformation or disinformation on this Russia-gate fiasco … we need this information out before the election,” Nunes said. “And that’s why we’ve been asking the President of the United States to declassify many more documents as it relates to not only Bruce Ohr but also with the Carter Page FISA.”
