Adam Schiff blasts Devin Nunes for “providing cover” to Trump
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee investigating links between Russia and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, told The Chronicle Friday that it’s hard to have confidence in the panel’s GOP chairman because he has been “providing political cover” to the White House.
Schiff, D-Burbank, said Nunes’ actions this week, including briefing President Trump on “incidential” intelligence on the president and his transition team discovered as part of court-approved surveillance of foreign powers, compromise his ability to lead a bi-partisan investigation of whether anyone on the campaign coordinated with Russians.
On Friday, Nunes announced that Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, would testify before the House Intelligence Committee in closed session as part of its investigation.
The committee wants to look into links between Manafort and a wealthy Russian close to President Vladimir Putin.
[...] on Friday, Nunes canceled a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday that was supposed to feature former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and Sally Yates, who briefly served as acting attorney general in January.
Nunes, a member of Trump’s transition team who is close to the president, told Fox News commentator Sean Hannity this week that I felt I had a duty and obligation to tell (Trump) because, as you know, he’s been taking a lot of heat in the news media.
If the information wasn’t about the Russian investigation and if, according to Nunes “there’s no evidence that anything was unlawfully collected,” Schiff said “the only thing I can surmise is that this was an effort to give the president some cover.”
Even though the Democratic members don’t have the votes to require the committee to do anything, he hopes public pressure will result in creation of an independent commission to investigate Russian connections.