Committee to review Comey memos
WASHINGTON — Senate Intelligence Committee leaders have received assurances they will soon be able to review the memos former FBI Director James Comey kept of his conversations with President Donald Trump, according to the panel’s top Democrat.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told reporters Wednesday that he and panel chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., have a “commitment” from a person they would not name to turn over Comey’s memos as part of the committee’s investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Warner said the memos are “critical information we have to have as part of our review process,” though he acknowledged that senators have already been briefed on most if not all of the memo’s details by Comey himself.
The commitment comes as Burr stated Wednesday that his goal is to wrap up the panel’s investigation by the end of the year — a target that though “aspirational right now, it can be done,” he said.
Warner would not speculate about the timeline, but noted the panel is moving into a new phase of their probe.
“It’s going to be more, some of the names of people who are affiliated with the Trump campaign — who have been basically mentioned in the process have possible ties to Russia,” he said.
The committee is expected to interview Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, but has not yet set a date. Kushner recently retained new counsel.
Warner said that the committee is “expecting Mr. Kushner, who volunteered, that that commitment will be kept.”
But the committee has not set a date for interviewing other campaign advisers, such as Carter Page and Roger Stone, and Burr said Wednesday that he hadn’t decided whether the committee would interview them at all.
They “haven’t necessarily been high on our list because we haven’t identified high value to ‘em,” Burr said.
“We’re still having a very difficult time understanding whether [Stone] has anything to contribute to our investigation,” Burr said, stressing the importance of trying “to separate what people say from what we find people do or did.”