Democrats try to shift focus of probe back to Russians
The House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the possibility that President Trump’s campaign staff colluded with Russia to skew the November election has ground to a halt. It’s been sidetracked by a debate over whether committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes has bungled the probe, by possibly cooperating with the White House.
Some top Democrats believe the sidetracking may be intentional, a way for Nunes, who served on Trump’s transition team, and the White House to stall an investigation that is creeping toward Trump’s inner circle.
This week, Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, offered to testify before congressional panels investigating the Russian activity if he is granted immunity from prosecution. He “certainly has a story to tell,” said Flynn’s attorney Robert Kelner.
Trump tweeted Friday that Flynn should testify under immunity, while at the same time dismissing the investigation as a “witch hunt” driven by Democrats and “the media.”
Meanwhile, Democrats want Nunes to separate himself from the investigation, saying he no longer has the credibility to lead it in a nonpartisan manner. And they are hoping to pull the probe back on track before voters dismiss it as more partisan noise from Washington.
A spokesman for Nunes, R-Tulare, declined to comment Friday when asked about calls for him to resign from the Intelligence Committee because he is too close to the White House to conduct a credible investigation.
Over the past two weeks, national media attention has focused on Nunes and why he went to the White House last month to view classified information and then shared it with Trump. Nunes said he told Trump that U.S. intelligence services may have picked up “incidental” information on the president and his transition team as part of court-approved surveillance of foreign powers. Nunes offered the information to the president without telling his fellow committee members.
The New York Times and Washington Post reported that White House staffers helped Nunes get the classified information, even though those staffers could have delivered the intelligence directly to Trump. Nunes has declined to name his source and has not shared the information with his committee.
The stories prompted the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, to question whether the White House “wished to effectively launder information through our committee to avoid the true source of the information.”
Intelligence Committee member Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, went even further.
“It’s intentional,” Speier said. “The whole fiasco with the magical mystery tour to the White House and back was all orchestrated as a diversion to the serious work the committee is scheduled to do.” She called Nunes “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
On Saturday, Speier and Michael McFaul, who was ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, will cohost a sold-out town hall in San Mateo they’re calling, “Russia 101.” They’ll try to refocus attention on the main objective of the House investigation: Did Americans and Russians collude to compromise the election, which former Vice President Dick Cheney recently likened to “an act of war.”
“We are so focused now on what the Trump team did that we forget what the Russians did — they violated our sovereignty,” said McFaul, who now teaches at Stanford University. “We are not focused on that.”
Other leaders have also pointedly mocked Nunes’ behavior.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., compared Nunes to the bungling Inspector Clouseau character from “The Pink Panther” films. On Friday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, ridiculed his “bizarre behavior.”
But some of Nunes’ fellow Republicans on the committee, such as Rep. Trey Gowdy, RS.C., defended his actions, saying it didn’t matter where he got the information.
“Whether it was the White House or Waffle House, what difference does it make if the information is reliable and authentic?” Gowdy told Fox News this week. “It just so happens that Devin had to do it this way.”
But on Friday, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, told The Chronicle’s editorial board: “It looks like to me he’s doing the bidding of the White House. To me, it looks like smoke bombs being rolled into an investigation.” Swalwell is also a member of the Intelligence Committee.
Many Democrats think Nunes should recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Speier thinks he should resign from the committee, because if he merely recuses himself the staffers that he put in place will still be there, probably aligned with him.
Swalwell doesn’t go that far. But he did say Friday that Nunes needs to step aside from the Russia investigation by next week.
“By the looks of it, we’ve lost independence, we lost credibility, and we’re not making progress,” Swalwell said. “If he wants the credibility, you need to lead our committee on nonRussia matters, he needs to step aside.
“The window is closing fast,” Swalwell said. “If we go into this next week and he’s still leading the Russia investigation, I don’t see how he can lead the committee on the other important business we do.”
One aspect of the Russian interference that McFaul and Swalwell agree on: the security of future elections.
“Even though the elections were several months ago, we have done nothing that I know of to make our electoral process more secure and more sovereign” from cyberterrorist threats, McFaul said.
Swalwell, who has access to classified information, agreed.
“We have done nothing, especially as far as securing our state databases,” he said.