The top Democrat on the House’s Russia investigation said Wednesday the White House is fighting against releasing the intelligence at the center of President Donald Trump’s accusations that he was a victim of surveillance.
“The White House clearly only wanted one person to see these documents, and that person was our chairman,” Schiff said on CNN’s “New Day,” referring to House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’ coordination with White House staff to review documents showing top Trump aides were picked up in “incidental” collection by US intelligence.
“I want the full committees to be able to see that, and we’re meeting resistance,” Schiff said. “If these documents are so damning or so indicating of the President, as he suggests, why are they opposing efforts to provide them to the full committee? I think that’s a question worthy of the White House answering.”
The White House did not immediately return CNN request for comment Wednesday morning. A representative for Schiff declined to explain what Schiff meant by his statement.
Schiff’s accusation marks a turn from just one day ago, when he said that the White House promised to show its intelligence to the other members of the House intelligence committee. Some lawmakers even said they might travel to the White House as early as Tuesday afternoon to review the intelligence, but as of Wednesday morning, Schiff and Nunes were the only lawmakers to have seen the intelligence reports.
The intelligence reports at the White House are at the center of two weeks of chaos that led top Democrats to call on Nunes to recuse himself from the House Russia investigation and, later, formed the core of Trump’s argument that former national security adviser Susan Rice was responsible for surveillance against him.
Since Rice’s name first surfaced in conservative media outlets Monday, interest has grown in what the intelligence reports actually show.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday she plans to review the intelligence and doesn’t “expect to” run into any resistance from the White House.
“I expect that I will see that,” Pelosi said Wednesday. She then accused Trump of making House Republicans look like “fools.”
“The White House has made fools of their allies in the House of Representatives in the way they’ve handled this,” Pelosi said. “They cook up some intelligence. They bring the chairman of the committee — a very distinguished position which he has tarnished — they use him as a tool to tell him what they have cooked up, now you go tell the President what we have cooked up and try to represent to the American people that this is legitimate intelligence.”