Intel Dem says minority may publish report detailing panel Republican attempts to hinder Russia probe

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee may publish a report detailing ways panel Republicans attempted to hinder the Russia probe, according to a senior Democrat on the committee.

In an interview published Tuesday, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) told Greg Sargent, a liberal columnist for The Washington Post, that Democrats are considering releasing such a minority report. One such example of Republican attempts to hurt the investigation, according to Himes, includes refusing to call certain witnesses.

“If the investigation gets wound up too quickly, the minority report would be largely about outstanding questions that were never examined,” Himes said in the interview.

The Connecticut lawmaker emphasized that he hopes the report will not be a necessary step. {mosads}

“It’s in both the Democrats’ and the Republicans’ interests to … write a report based on a common set of facts,” Himes said. “It would be a tragedy if the report has a minority section that says, ‘Look, we wanted to talk to these two dozen witnesses and weren’t able to do so.’”

His remarks come after Democrats on the committee voiced concerns that Republicans are trying to prematurely cut off the panel’s investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia’s meddle in the presidential election.

In a report by The Washington Post on Sunday, source familiar with the matter say Democrats are frustrated that committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who solely holds the power to subpoena witnesses, refused to seek dozens of interviews and records that the minority repeatedly requested.

Democrats are interested in talking to Donald Trump Jr. and Attorney General Jeff Sessions again, both of whom appeared before the committee earlier this year.

Democrats hope to find out a number of things from such testimonies, including whether foreign policy campaign aide George Papadopoulos talked to top campaign officials about having implicating information on Hillary Clinton’s campaign, The New York Times reported Saturday. They also reportedly want to see if dirt on Clinton is connected at all to the controversial June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer. 

Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators and has been cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller. 

Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in mid-December that the investigation may be winding down, pointing to lack of scheduled interviews in 2018.

“I’m increasingly worried Republicans will shut down the House Intelligence Committee investigation at the end of the month,” Schiff tweeted. “We have dozens of outstanding witnesses on key aspects of our investigation that they refuse to contact and many document requests they continue to sit on.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy (S.C.), a senior Republican on the panel, denied that the probe is definitively over, stating it would wrap up naturally.

“I feel no need to apologize for concluding an investigation,” Gowdy told the The New York Times last month.

A spokesman for Nunes’s office declined to comment on the possibility of a minority report.