Schiff: I don’t think White House wants to see Yates testify

The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday said he doesn’t believe the White House wants to see former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testify in front of Congress, despite claims by press secretary Sean Spicer that he hopes Yates appears in front of the committee.

“I think the reality is, Wolf, they don’t want to do the open hearing. They saw how the open hearing went on Monday and they don’t want to hear what Sally Yates has to say,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room.”

“I don’t think, not withstanding what Sean Spicer says, that the White House wants to hear what Sally Yates has to say. But I think the country ought to hear from her.”

Schiff was referencing comments from press secretary Sean Spicer, who on Tuesday said he hopes Yates testifies in front of the committee currently investigating Russia’s interference in the United States presidential election.

Yates was fired from her post after announcing that she would not defend President Trump’s travel ban. 

Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) canceled an open hearing scheduled for Tuesday that would have featured Yates, along with former CIA director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. 

The cancellation of the week’s hearings came amidst growing calls from Democratic lawmakers for Nunes to recuse himself from heading the Russia probe.

Nunes revealed earlier this week that he made a visit to White House grounds last week to meet with a source and review classified material. The trip came one day before the chairman briefed the press and the White House on reports he had seen showing that information from Trump transition team members had incidentally been collected by intelligence agencies.

Nunes has maintained that the information he reviewed was not related to Russia or the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation. He said he is concerned that members of Trump’s team were swept up in legal intelligence collection and that some of those individuals were “unmasked” in the reports.

Schiff, who has called for Nunes to recuse himself following the revelation about his trip to the White House, said the public should know more details about the firing of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Yates reportedly warned the White House that Flynn was a risk before it was revealed that he had spoken with the ambassador to Russia. 

Schiff said he is scheduled to meet with Nunes on Thursday, but did not provide details of the timing of the meeting. The ranking Democrat said he is open to having people testify behind closed doors, but that such a testimony does not “preclude” the previously scheduled open hearing. 

“We thought we had a good compromise which is, if you want to have the closed hearing first, if that was the issue you had in terms of the open hearing, we’ll do the closed hearing first,” Schiff said.  “We can schedule the closed hearing on Tuesday. We can do the open hearing on Thursday.”