[van id=”politics/2017/03/30/putin-russia-us-election-newday.cnn”]
Russian President Vladimir Putin denies that Russia interfered with the US presidential election
By Jeremy Herb
The leaders of the House intelligence committee are trying to get their Russia investigation back on the rails, according to the panel’s top Democrat.
California Reps. Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff met Thursday after a week’s worth of canceled hearings and bickering between the committee leaders, as their investigation turned partisan following a decision by Nunes, a Republican, to go to the press and White House with intelligence before alerting the committee.
“We’re doing our best to try and get the investigation back on track,” Schiff said following the meeting. “We’re in the process of exchanging witness lists and are going to see if by the end of the day we can agree on at least a common set of initial witnesses.”
CNN has reached out to Nunes for comment on the meeting and has not yet received a response.
The committee leaders were trying to agree on a common set of initial witnesses, Schiff said, an issue that prompted the cancellation of both an open and closed hearing this week.
Schiff said he and Nunes have agreed to go forward with a closed hearing with FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers. He also requested that Nunes agree to hold the public hearing with former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, though he said the chairman has yet to commit to do so.
The committee’s investigation has effectively ground to a halt after Nunes went to the White House last week with information of potential surveillance of Trump’s aides, without telling Democrats on the committee first.
Schiff, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats have called for Nunes to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
Schiff said Nunes has still not revealed the intelligence he said he shared with President Donald Trump and has pledged to share with the committee, or who Nunes met with at the White House.
“It certainly was a part of our discussion, but beyond what we agreed to do, or hope to achieve to do by the end of the day, I really don’t want to get into specifics,” Schiff said.
The California Democrat said he had a “great sense of nostalgia” seeing Senate intelligence committee leaders holding a news conference together on Wednesday, saying that he had that relationship with Nunes up until last week.
But Schiff argued it was up to Nunes to restore credibility in the committee’s investigation.
“Ultimately the speaker and the chair decide who they want to run this investigation and they’ll have to articulate why and how they feel that can be done credibly,” Schiff said. “But our job is to do everything in our power to be responsible to go forward and be constructive and that’s what we’re doing.”
The Senate intelligence committee has a list of 20 witnesses it’s called, and Schiff said he thinks the House panel is looking at a similar number.
That includes Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, Schiff added.
“I think that we certainly had agreement today that the witnesses that we feel are appropriate, they won’t stand in our way, and we feel the same way about witnesses they want to call,” he said. “So I think that was an encouraging sign.”
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