The House Intelligence Committee voted Friday to release dozens of transcripts of interviews it conducted as part of its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election — including conversations with senior associates of President Trump.
The panel agreed to send 53 transcripts — all but five of the interviews conducted during the probe — to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for review before they are made public, officials said.
Among the transcripts are interviews with Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, ex-bodyguard Keith Schiller, former communications chief Hope Hicks and longtime Trump ally Roger Stone, who is the subject of a grand jury probe.
Interviews with officials from former President Barack Obama’s administration, including former national security adviser Susan Rice and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, also are included in the trove.
The excluded transcripts include the interviews the panel conducted with former FBI Director James Comey, former National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers and former CIA Director John Brennan, the Washington Post reported.
Democrats on the committee have been pushing for the release of the documents for months, but it was only recently that panel Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) agreed they should be made public.
Top panel Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff of California complained that “some of the most important” transcripts are still being withheld.
They include those of interviews with Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who served as head of the Democratic National Committee when its emails were hacked, and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who had various contacts with Russian officials, the newspaper reported.
“They’re trying to bury them as long as they can,” Schiff said of Republicans, who rejected Democrats’ effort to release all the transcripts behind closed doors Friday morning.
The panel’s interviews form the basis for its GOP-authored report released earlier this year when the committee ended its inquiry.
The report found there was no coordination between Team Trump and Russian efforts to sway the 2016 election.
With Post wires
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