Adam Schiff Pressured to Release Russia Transcripts

The heat is on for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) to honor his promise to release thousands of pages of testimony from his committee’s Russia probe. 

Writing in a letter to Mr. Schiff this week, DNI Richard Grenell said the transcripts were cleared for release months ago and threatened to release them himself if Schiff refused.

“In the interests of transparency and accountability, 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 all Members of Congress and the American public as soon as possible,” wrote Grenell.

The Intelligence Committee reportedly received Grenell’s letter on Tuesday. “Given the overtly political role now played by the acting DNI, including the leak of his letter, this committee and the public can have little confidence that his determinations are made on the merits,” argued a Committee spokesperson.

The Intelligence Committee has promised to review Grenell’s redactions as quickly as possible. “We look forward to releasing these transcripts, which relate to misconduct by the Trump campaign and the president himself.”

A total of 53 witnesses testified during the investigation, which was conducted while the Committee was chaired by California Republican Devin Nunes. The investigation concluded in 2018, after which the Committee voted unanimously to send the transcripts to the intelligence community for review.

The transcripts were stuck in bureaucratic limbo even after the Committee voted again in September 2019 to release the vetted transcripts.

Like Robert Mueller’s investigation, the Intelligence Committee’s probe found no evidence that President Trump or any members of his presidential campaign team colluded with Russia.

The investigation saw testimony from high-level officials including Donald Trump Jr., former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, Obama aides Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and Sally Yates, former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, and Mike Gaeta – the first FBI agent to make contact with ex-British spy and Trump dossier author Christopher Steele.

The transcripts could affect the ongoing case of Michal Flynn – Trump’s former National Security Adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his conversations with a Russian ambassador.

As we learned last week, recently exposed documents suggest the FBI altered data to make Flynn appear guilty, forced him to plead guilty by threatening his son, and conspired to violate his rights for political purposes. Flynn’s lawyer has asked for the case to be dismissed.

“We understand now that Chairman Schiff is blocking the release of these transcripts,” wrote a group of House Republicans. “This news, if accurate, is disturbing – especially in light of Chairman Schiff’s cries in 2019 for transparency regarding allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.”

They noted that Schiff went so far as to claim 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 continue to promote such wild accusations.”

Editor’s Note: We have always known that Adam Schiff cherry-picked from the information he gathered, presented data out of context and hid information that might have contradicted his case to impeach Trump.

I’m thinking that when this data is made public we will find documentation of Schiff’s underhanded and un-Constitutional tactics.