Speaker Ryan Must Curb House Intelligence Chair’s Efforts to Undermine FBI Russia Investigation

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  • David Vance
Statement of Karen Hobert Flynn, Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn

Americans deserve to know the truth about the Russian attacks on the 2016 presidential election but House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) has made every effort – including tonight — to discredit the investigation and whitewash what has already come to light.

To protect the integrity of the House of Representatives and its role in our democracy, Speaker Ryan must remove Nunes from further participating in the Russia investigation.

The memo that the Republicans voted to release – the veracity of which is not confirmed – is widely seen as a blatant attempt to smear the DOJ and the underlying investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller using cherry-picked findings.

At a minimum, if the GOP memo is released, then so should the Democratic rebuttal memo, as well as all the underlying background information upon which the memos rely.  

It is outrageous that Republican members of the committee would suppress the findings of Democrats on a party-line vote on a matter that goes to the heart of the rule of law and an attack on our democracy. If the GOP memo is to be released, all transcripts and all underlying material should be released as well – not a cherrypicked version of the committee’s findings.

After serving as a member of the Trump transition team, Nunes has revealed himself repeatedly as someone willing to distort the truth and reflexively defend the President from any damaging information that has come to light. Such an individual has no business leading an investigation that has already lead to indictments and guilty pleas by senior members of the Trump Administration and the campaign.

The American people expect and deserve a congressional investigation to be conducted with transparency and integrity not partisan games.

To read this statement online, click here.