Top Intel Dem excoriates GOP over end of Russia probe

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ripped into Republicans on the committee on Monday after they announced they were ending the probe into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia’s election meddling. 

“While the Majority members of our committee have indicated for some time that they have been under great pressure to end the investigation, it is nonetheless another tragic milestone for this Congress, and represents yet another capitulation to the executive branch,” Schiff said in a statement. 

{mosads}”By ending its oversight role in the only authorized investigation in the House, the Majority has placed the interests of protecting the President over protecting the country, and history will judge its actions harshly,” he continued. 

“If the Russians do have leverage over the President of the United States, the Majority has simply decided it would rather not know,” he said. 

Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) said on Monday the committee would no longer interview witnesses and was in the process of preparing their final report. 

A draft of that roughly 150-page report will be available to Democrats on the committee on Tuesday. 

The draft document said there is no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians while contradicting an official U.S. intelligence community assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin favored President Trump during the campaign. 

“We found no evidence of collusion,” Conaway told reporters on Monday. “We found perhaps some bad judgment, inappropriate meetings, inappropriate judgment in taking meetings — but only Tom Clancy could take this series of inadvertent contacts, meetings, whatever, and weave that into some sort of a spy thriller that could go out there.”