House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Thursday released 57 interview transcripts from the committee’s probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, after being pushed by Republicans and the Acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell.
Grenell wrote a letter to Schiff earlier this week informing him that all the transcripts were reviewed by the intelligence community, and that all of them — including 43 that had been ready since June 2019 — could be released. He also said he would release them if Schiff did not, since the committee voted unanimously in 2018 to release them.
Right before Schiff released the transcripts, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) dared Schiff to release them.
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.
Schiff published them on the committee’s website, along with a long statement that attempted to recast himself as correct and falsely claimed Special Counsel Robert Mueller did not make any decision on whether the the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
The statement said: “Throughout its investigation, the Committee uncovered significant evidence of Trump campaign efforts to seek, make use of, and cover up Russian help in the 2016 presidential election.”
The investigation was to answer the question whether the Trump campaign colluded with, or more technically “conspired” with, the Russian government on the 2016 election — not whether there were Trump campaign efforts to “seek, make use of, and cover up Russian help.”
Schiff spent three years claiming there was “more than circumstantial” evidence of collusion.
He also claimed in his statement that Mueller “refused to draw any conclusion on the issue of collusion — contrary to false representations made by Attorney General Bill Barr and others.”
Mueller’s report stated: “…the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
Mueller’s report explained that investigators applied the “framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of ‘collusion,'” since collusion “is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law.”
It also said “like collusion, ‘coordination’ does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law,” but that investigators understood “coordination” to mean “an agreement — tacit or express — between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference.”
“We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” it said.
Schiff then rehashed in his statement episodes he believed were “corrupt interactions” — including a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a “Russian delegation.” He did not include that the “Russian delegation” was led by a Russian lawyer who was working at that same time with Fusion GPS, the firm that manufactured the so-called “pee dossier.”
He also included then-candidate Trump’s joke that if Russia was listening, they should find Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 deleted emails.
Republicans had called on Schiff to release the transcripts to show how little evidence there was to support his claims of collusion.
Right before Schiff released the transcripts, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-OH) tweeted:
Adam Schiff interviewed 53 witnesses during his Russia witch hunt.
Not a single one provided evidence of collusion.
Release the transcripts!
Adam Schiff interviewed 53 witnesses during his Russia witch hunt.
Not a single one provided evidence of collusion.
Release the transcripts!
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) May 7, 2020
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