Intel panel Republicans seem to back away from finding that Russia was not trying to help Trumpx
The leader of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation seemed to back off Tuesday from the most surprising finding in the GOP’s report that Russia was not trying to help President Trump as the panel’s top Democrat trashed the product as a political gift to the White House.
Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.) told reporters Tuesday that “it’s clear [Russian officials] were trying to hurt Hillary [Clinton]” by interfering in the 2016 election, and that “everybody gets to make up their own mind whether they were trying to hurt Hillary, help Trump, it’s kind of glass half-full, glass half-empty.”
.. When it comes to determining whether Russia interfered to hurt clinton or help Trump, “you can pitch that either way,” Conaway said Tuesday.
.. His comments came after other panel Republicans, including Reps. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla.) gave interviews in which they stressed that there was evidence that Russia had tried to damage Clinton’s candidacy.
.. Schiff added that the report was “little more than another Nunes memo in long form,”
.. Schiff and other Democrats on the committee released a 22-page “status update” Tuesday night, listing the various witnesses, firms and documents that the panel had declined to subpoena or otherwise examine
.. “The majority has decided they would rather shut down the investigation than find out the answers to the questions we had for Stephen K. Bannon,” Schiff said. “This majority doesn’t want to know the answers, and it has set a precedent now that will affect future Congresses’ ability to get answers from the executive.”