Republican lawmaker: Committee is ‘poison’

WASHINGTON — Partisan sparring over the Russia investigation is causing chaos on the traditionally bipartisan House intelligence committee — with the panel now planning to build a wall to separate Republican and Democratic staff who long have sat side by side.

A senior Republican on the committee, Florida Rep. Tom Rooney, said Thursday that he thinks the committee is “poison” right now, characterizing partisan tensions as a total breakdown on the committee that could have national security concerns. Rooney is one of the leaders of the panel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign was involved.

“The level of trust is just gone,” Rooney said, adding “certain things definitely suffer,” such as how to fund and conduct oversight of intelligence agencies.

Rooney said he was discouraged only three or four members of the committee attended a recent national security briefing on a “very sensitive issue abroad that we have been following for years” as lawmakers publicly debated their differences concerning a memo criticizing methods the FBI used to obtain a surveillance warrant on a onetime Trump campaign associate.

The plan to divide the Republican and Democratic staffs comes as members of the two parties have been at odds, first concerning the panel’s investigation into Russia and more recently over Republican investigations into the FBI and Justice Department. A committee official confirmed the plan to separate staff, characterizing the move as bringing the panel into line with other committees in the House where majority and minority staff use different offices. The official declined to be identified because the committee’s operations aren’t public.

Much of the tension has been between the Republican chairman of the panel, California Rep. Devin Nunes, and the committee’s top Democrat, California Rep. Adam Schiff, who have been chiding each other since launching the Russia investigation together last year.