Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell sent a letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Tuesday informing him that transcripts of all 53 interviews the committee conducted as part of its Russia investigation have been cleared for public release.
The letter, first reported by the Washington Examiner‘s Byron York, revealed that 43 transcripts had been cleared for release since June 2019, but that Schiff had been sitting on them since then.
“I urge you to honor your previous public statements, and your committee’s unanimous vote on this matter, to release all 53 cleared transcripts to Members of Congress and the American public as soon as possible,” Grenell said in the letter.
He added: “I am also willing to release the transcripts directly from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, as to ensure we comply with the unanimous and bipartisan vote to release the transcripts.”
Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) said in a statement:
Schiff himself voted to release these transcripts and claims he wants them out. There’s no reason he can’t publish them all today — except that he really doesn’t want the American people to see how little evidence there ever was for the Russian collusion hoax he advocated and continues to advocate.
Republicans on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees also urged Schiff in a letter to release the transcripts, to back up his infamous assertions of collusion:
For almost four years, prominent Democrat politicians and commentators alleged that President Trump colluded with Russia, with Chairman Schiff going so far as to say that he had ‘direct evidence’ of collusion.
Now that these allegations have been disproven by several investigations, the American people deserve to have transparency about why public figures such as Chairman Schiff continued to promote such wild accusations.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) tweeted Wednesday:
Cong Schiff is withholding transcripts from American ppl relating to Russia probe [.] Acting Intelligence Chief Grenell said they are ready 2b released for public viewing WHY DELAY? Transparency brings acctability! What a breath of fresh air Grenell is bringing abt declassifying.
“The more we learn about Russia probe the more it seems we were right 2b concerned all along House Intel transcripts need 2b released so we can all know what House Democrats have kept secret,” Grassley added.
Cong Schiff is withholding transcripts from American ppl relating to Russia probe Acting Intelligence Chief Grenell said they are ready 2b released for public viewing WHY DELAY? Transparency brings acctability! What a breath of fresh air Grenell is bringing abt declassifying
— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) May 6, 2020
The more we learn about Russia probe the more it seems we were right 2b concerned all along House Intel transcripts need 2b released so we can all know what House Democrats have kept secret
— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) May 6, 2020
Grenell said the transcripts have not been shared with the White House, addressing one of the Democrats’ concerns in declassifying the transcripts.
The transcripts are more than 6,000 pages of interviews, conducted by the committee’s probe of allegations into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The investigation began under then-Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), who discovered during his investigation that the Hillary Clinton campaign had paid for Fusion GPS’s so-called “pee dossier” alleging Trump-Russia collusion, through Democrat law firm Perkins Coie, among other revelations.
The transcripts include testimony from Donald Trump Jr., Steve Bannon, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, Michael Cohen, Hope Hicks, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, and others.
The interviews were conducted behind closed doors. The committee voted in September 2018 to release all the transcripts unanimously after classified information was redacted.
According to a Wall Street Journal editorial board piece, the intelligence community had finished its review of 43 of the transcripts, but Schiff was refusing to release them.
A CNN report on Wednesday cited a committee spokesperson who said the committee was preparing to release the transcripts.
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter or on Facebook.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.