The New York Times reports that Republicans on House Intelligence Committee appear to be rushing to complete their Russia investigation by the end of the year:
Some of the most important witnesses are to be interviewed in New York by committee staff early next week, possibly leaving Democrats to choose between attending those depositions or voting on the massive tax bill coming before the House.
And in an indication that Republicans hope to wrap up their probe, the House committee has yet to schedule a single interview after the holidays...That has left Democrats fearful that the majority is trying to finish the investigative portion of its work by the end of next week, before the committee can connect the dots on one of the most serious efforts by a hostile foreign actor to hijack American democracy.
“I feel no need to apologize for concluding an investigation,” said Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, one of the Republicans leading the investigation.
According to the Times, the interviews scheduled for next week in New York seem to have brought tensions between Republicans and Democrats on the committee to a boiling point:
The committee has scheduled sessions there with Rhona Graff, Mr. Trump’s longtime executive assistant, and Felix Sater, a Trump associate who boasted that he could help engineer a real estate deal with the aid of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that would help win Mr. Trump the presidency.
Democrats say the interviews are important to their work and will coincide with two key votes in Washington, on the tax bill and a year-end spending measure. They said the witnesses had made clear they would be willing to come to Washington at a later date.
(...)
“We continually are receiving hundreds of pages of documents on the very eve of interviews with witnesses,” Mr. Schiff said. “They are not following up on interviews that we’ve done. Our request to subpoena parties, even where they agreed the information was relevant, have gone without any action. And there are dozens of witnesses that we’ve been asking for months to bring in where the letters haven’t even gone out.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) tweeted Friday that he believes Republicans in House leadership are planning to shut down the investigation after holding just enough interviews to give the illusion of a full investigation.
"I’m increasingly worried Republicans will shut down the House Intelligence Committee investigation at the end of the month," Schiff tweeted. "Republicans have scheduled no witnesses after next Friday and none in 2017 [sic]. 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."
Full story: House Intelligence Panel Is Rushing to Complete Russia Probe (NYT)
Ranking Democrat raises alarm House committee will end Russia investigation (The Hill)
Rep. Adam Schiff's Tweet Thread