House Intel Committee agrees to investigate Trump-Russia after House Judiciary Committee refuses to
Yesterday the House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines not to investigate the Trump-Russia scandal. But today, Congressman Adam Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee announced on Hardball with Chris Matthews that his committee has just reached a bipartisan agreement to investigate Trump-Russia instead. How is that possible?
The answer is that these House committees are independent of each other, so the Judiciary can’t stop the Intelligence Committee from investigating. And assuming that what Congressman Schiff just announced on live television is indeed accurate, the Intelligence Committee will be investigating Trump-Russia. Going forward I’ll be looking for signs of how seriously the Republicans on that committee are taking the investigation and reporting accordingly.
This is all independent of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is running its own ongoing Trump-Russia investigation and seems to be taking it rather seriously. For instance Republican Senator Susan Collins, who sits on the Intel committee, is publicly calling for Michael Flynn to testify, and she’s threatening to subpoena Donald Trump’s tax returns if it ends up being necessary to get to the bottom of Trump’s relationship with Russia. Her vote, along with the Democrats on the committee, makes for a makeshift majority.
In addition, the Senate Judiciary Committee is also running its own lower profile Trump-Russia investigation. Thus far it’s formally asking the FBI for transcripts of Michael Flynn’s phone calls to Russia.
This all seems confusing and bureaucratic. But it’s somewhat by design. The power among congressional committees is spread out like this so that if one congressman or committee refuses to do their job, others can work around them.
It’s also noteworthy that the Democrats on all of these committees are unanimously pushing for Trump-Russia investigations, but they don’t have a majority on any committee. It’s just a matter of which committees have a few Republicans who are willing to do their jobs by dutifully voting to investigate a president from their own party, and which committees have no Republicans willing to do their jobs.
Make no mistake: the handful of Republicans in Congress who have been spurred into doing their jobs on Trump-Russia are largely doing so because you pressured them into it. You made Trump-Russia important by focusing on it. You made Trump toxically unpopular by marching in the streets, so they have to worry about standing too close to him. You attended town halls and made these Republican congressmen afraid for their jobs. Keep it up; it’s incrementally working. Help us investigate Trump-Russia!
