The Atlantic's Natasha Bertrand reports House Intelligence Committee Democrats are trying to manage expectations when it comes to what they will do about the Russia investigation current Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) shuttered prematurely.
Anyone expecting subpoenas to fly upon Democrats regaining control of the committee, for example, will be disappointed, Democratic members told me this week. “There will be some decision making regarding a more selective examination” of certain areas of the investigation, Democratic Representative Denny Heck of Washington told me. “But that’s a different thing from opening the whole investigation again.” Heck, like other Democratic members, said that he trusted Special Counsel Robert Mueller to do a thorough investigation. And he emphasized that while Democrats will have subpoena power if they regain the majority—Schiff has in the past expressed a desire to subpoena Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr., among others—he is “hoping it will be a collaborative conversation” if and when the committee wants to call someone to testify.
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... The degree to which the House Intelligence Committee’s infighting and dysfunction spilled into public view throughout Trump’s first 18 months in office—through leaks, television appearances, and press conferences—was remarkable. (The investigation so divided the panel that the Republican chairman, Devin Nunes, considered building a physical wall between staffers.) And it is a case study in how Russia’s election interference has only deepened divisions among the political leaders tasked with responding to it.
“We want to be productive and responsible, and show the American people what they should have learned two years ago: how responsible people investigate an attack on their country,” Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell of California, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, told me. “If there are gaps that exist in the investigation, then we should fill them in. We don’t want to focus on the politics of it, but this isn’t going to be a dancing-in-the-end-zone investigation.”
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“If Mueller’s probe didn’t examine areas where there could have been significant areas of Russian meddling, then of course we will do that,” [Democratic Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut] said. But he also called for a return to good-faith collaboration. “Nunes issued subpoena after subpoena without consulting the ranking member,” Himes said. “We will need to be the adult in the room,” he added. “We want to imbue the committee with a culture of cooperation.”
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“I do worry that people are chomping at the bit for the investigations, but we’re a little out of practice on the legislation side of things,” Himes said. “If we screw this up, theres a chance in 2020 that voters say, ‘These guys are as bad as Trump.’’
The Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee Won’t Restart a Full-On Russia Probe (The Atlantic)