Posted on 05/06/2020 8:10:34 PM PDT by MarvinStinson
The House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously in the fall of 2018 to release dozens of witness interview transcripts from its investigation into Russian interference, but the transcripts have not been made public.
The declassification process by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was expected to take just a few weeks or months, but nearly two years later, some administration officials, as well as ranking Republican member Devin Nunes, are blaming Chairman Adam Schiff for the delay.
“Adam Schiff is thwarting the will of the House Intelligence Committee as expressed in the bipartisan vote in September 2018 to make these transcripts public,” one senior intelligence official told the Washington Examiner. “He has appointed himself arbiter of what the public should see and has refused to allow the White House to review its own equities, making declassification of 10 of the transcripts impossible. It's difficult to imagine any motive other than Schiff is still trying to control the narrative on Russia collusion.”
Forty-three of the 53 transcripts have gone through the declassification process and were returned to Schiff over half a year ago, but he has not released them, despite promising last fall to make them public quickly. Just The News reported on aspects of this controversy earlier this week.
A sticking point with the remaining 10 transcripts is the desire by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to allow the White House to review them as part of the declassification process.
In March 2019, under then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, ODNI staffers briefed the House Intelligence Committee that some of the interviews implicated “White House equities” and that the top spy office “looked for mention of interactions or communications with current or former [White House] and [National Security Council] officials either during transition or after descriptions of policies or direction established within the [White House] and [NSC]” as part of the declassification process, according to a letter Schiff sent to the ODNI obtained by the Washington Examiner. The ODNI said some of the witness testimony “could be privileged” and that a determination like that “can only be made by” the White House.
Schiff rejected the request from Coats a week later.
“Under no circumstances shall ODNI, or any other element of the Intelligence Community, share any HPSCI transcripts with the White House, President Trump, or any persons associated with the White House or the President,” Schiff wrote. “Such transcripts remain the sole property of HPSCI, and were transmitted to ODNI for the limited purpose of enabling a classification review by IC elements and the Department of Justice.”
Coats left the ODNI in August 2019. He was succeeded by Joseph Maguire, who, after the Ukraine impeachment controversy, was replaced by Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany.
The Washington Examiner has learned that at least two of the 10 disputed transcripts do not contain classified information and that Schiff could release them, along with the 43 other declassified transcripts.
Nunes told the Washington Examiner that Schiff should make the already declassified transcripts public immediately.
“HPSCI Democrats opposed every Republican document request and subpoena that helped to expose malfeasance in the FBI’s Russia collusion probe. And now, by refusing to publish the witness transcripts or the transcript of the committee’s briefing with former [intelligence community Inspector General] Michael Atkinson, the Democrats are blatantly continuing to hide documents that expose their own mistruths,” Nunes said. “There is no reason for keeping these documents secret except that they want to hide what’s in them.”
See post 9 here.
Can President Trump simply skip the politics and as Commander-In-Chief order them immediately released? And then ask Schiff what the big deal was, why the delay in releasing them (except that they may undermine Schiff and Democrats).
Schiff’s office tried to turn the tables on Grenell in the statement on Wednesday.
“After more than a year of unnecessary delay, the ODNI has finally concluded its protracted classification review of the Committee’s transcripts, and it also appears the White House has now abandoned its improper insistence on reviewing key transcripts, which the Committee appropriately rejected,” a spokesman for Schiff said in a statement, according to CNN.
“Our review of ODNI’s newly proposed redactions will be as expeditious as possible given the constraints of the pandemic, and we look forward to releasing these transcripts.”
https://dailycaller.com/2020/05/06/adam-schiff-transcripts-russia-house-intelligence/
...so it’s going to take a long time to look at the redactions because of the pandemic.
It’s been reported here on FR yesterday that the acting DNI—Grennel—put Schiff on notice that he would release the docs if Schiff didn’t.
hardball time!
If only he would follow in his tennis shoes.
All of the above....plus Shiffty is just plain EVIL.
Schiff will lawyer up and get an Obama appointee to rule that these transcripts may not be released to the public.
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